Borderlands 4 Goes Gold, Assuaging Concerns of Rushed Development

Gearbox Software has announced on X that Borderlands 4 has officially “gone gold,” meaning that development on the game has concluded, and that the game is in a state where the developer and publisher can dedicate their time to preparing for launch. This effectively means that—barring any unforeseen circumstances—the game’s September 12 launch date is locked in, and that no additional development work will delay the launch. It’s still generally advisable to wait for the game to actually launch before buying it, but this is still an important milestone for Gearbox and 2K Games.

This doesn’t mean that technical work on the game is complete, and it has already been confirmed that certain minor features, like Photo Mode, will be added to Borderlands 4 post-launch. It has also become the norm for games to receive day-one patches, and this will likely be the case for Borderlands 4 as well, but having the bulk of the development work done ahead of time theoretically leaves the development team with extra time to iron out bugs, perform much-needed optimizations, and make sure the game is ready for launch. Borderlands 4 creative director, Graeme Timmins, previously commented that the reason the Photo Mode was delayed to post-launch was due to needing to prioritize other features that affected “moment-to-moment” gameplay. This gave rise to concerns that Borderlands 4’s development may have been rushed, and that it would potentially ship in an incomplete state. Reaching the gold milestone suggests that this is unlikely, although anything is possible.