What is the true point of post-game content? We’re talking about the content that truly “expands the game,” whether it be through story content, gameplay modes, true upgrades, that kind of thing. Cosmetics don’t count here, as they’re absolutely superficial. Anyway, when you think about the post-game content for certain games, you think about wanting to dive into them and see what the dev team has done to make the game special again. In the case of Borderlands 4, Gearbox Software surprised everyone last week when it dropped the Bounty Pack 1 for free, causing all sorts of discussions as to what happened to it and what would be the plan in the future for the title.
What is surprising, though, isn’t the back and forth between players about whether the content is good or not, but the fact that despite the game getting some all-new story content for free…the game’s player count seems a bit…unmoved. This comes from PCGamesN, which tracked what was happening before and after the content release and noticed that on Steam, the game didn’t get a true uptick in any meaningful way. In fact, its peak was on par with what had happened the previous few weeks, which was less than 20K in players!
So, what is happening here? Why aren’t more people trying out Borderlands 4? Or, why aren’t people who have played the game before trying out the new content to see what it’s like? There are many answers to that question. The first is simply that…they might not care. Yes, this was new content, but even Gearbox Software itself admitted that it wasn’t as substantial as they wanted it to be, and that’s why they gave it out for free. That’s not exactly what you want to hear from a game developer.
Second, the content being so light might not have been a “draw” to bring them in. After all, for all its hype, the game is still a pretty standard FPS with RPG elements. As such, when you have beaten the main campaign, there’s not much reason to keep going unless you want to get your Vault Hunters to max level and power. Sure, there are plenty who do that, but it’s not for everyone.
Finally, many people are still asking for Gearbox Software to fix the many problems that the title has, and things have gotten better…but they’re still not where they need to be. Thus, why play a flawed game that will frustrate them just because it has a tiny piece of new content? Exactly.
