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Borderlands 4 just broke the last record it broke on Steam.
The Previous Record
In its first 24 hours, the game hit 207,479 concurrent players in Steam. That is the highest number of concurrent players the game has ever reached, as logged on SteamDB.
The previous peak was hit by Borderlands 2 with 124,678 players. This metric seems to match how gamers have concluded that Borderlands 4 itself has reached a new peak for the franchise.
But of course, there’s something else that’s changed between 2012 and 2025. Not only are there considerably more gamers as new generations have come piling in.
There’s also a bigger potential market for online games in particular. The issues surrounding online play in 2012 have been addressed, and we’re spoiled with our online experience that it’s easy to take for granted.
All of this is to say that there’s huge potential for Borderlands 4 to reach even higher numbers. And today, we have even more proof of that.
The New Record
As of this writing, Borderlands 4 has reached a new peak of 304,398 concurrent players. It reached this record last Sunday, September 14, 2025, on 19:50 UTC.
It also reached this peak even as players on all platforms complained about poor optimization. Now, there seems to be some confusion on this point, as a lot of those Steam players have to be playing on below spec hardware.
We are empathetic that those gamers were hoping to play the game but couldn’t. We can also understand that PC gamers who do have powerful hardware are frustrated with the poor optimization. That means they’re using expensive hardware with a huge carbon cost, but it isn’t worth all of those costs.
What we are saying is that Borderlands 4 has proven popular in spite of that poor optimization. The performance issues that do exist are not bad enough to ruin the game. But of course, those player numbers prove that.
What About Consoles – And Switch 2?
We do expect that a lot of Borderlands 4’s players are on PC, on Steam. But the console players definitely contribute to those player numbers.
Of course, the Xbox and PlayStation players do not get logged into SteamDB. But the larger pool of players helps draw even more players in. That’s especially the case for friends convincing their other friends to play with them.
And that means there’s a bigger potential upside when the game launches on Switch 2 this October. We know it sounds counterintuitive. But the appeal of friends pulling each other to join could make the Switch 2 launch a big day for Borderlands 4 on Steam too.
What we really want to know is how many concurrent players the game has on all platforms. We’re sure if there’s an impressive big number to brag about, Take-Two is going to announce it soon. In any case, there’s no question regarding Borderlands 4’s success.
