Gearbox has made a commitment for Borderlands 4.
Creative director Graeme Timmins said this on Twitter when asked about it:
We’re still working on cross-save, it is coming but requires a lot of moving parts to be in place. We will definitely share more as we get more confident with the date, but we’re committed to having that feature out to the community.
What Has Gearbox Said About Cross-Save?
Randy Pitchford spoke at length about cross-save cross-progression in Gearbox’s panel at this year’s PAX AU.
Pitchford talked about his personal experience of being able to move between different devices to game. While he was satisfied that Gearbox delivered cross-play, they also want to give fans cross-save cross-progression.
Why Cross-Save Could Be A Bigger Feature In The Future
For now, cross-save cross-progression is a nice bonus. If you’re playing a single player game like Star Wars Outlaws, it is great to play it on the go on the Nintendo Switch 2 and then pick up where you left off at home on a more powerful console or gaming PC.
But this is a bigger deal for online multiplayer games. The market leader Fortnite set the precedent here.
Using one Fortnite account, you can carry over your progress and content between PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, Switch 2, and even mobile. That means even if you visit a friend, you can play your game on their platform if you sign in.
That’s helped make Fortnite the behemoth that it is. Because they did everything to make the game available to fans. But there’s a flip side to this too.
What Is At Stake If Developers Fail To Deliver?
Payday 3 is one of the disappointing releases of 2023, and continues to be a black mark for its publisher, Starbreeze AB.
Starbreeze failed to deliver on many things at launch, and continues to pay for it to this day. One feature that it did promise was cross-save.
While Payday 3 does have cross-save with cross-progression today, that comes with a caveat. You don’t get to carry over any progress and save you did with your DLCs.
We don’t want to be too harsh on Starbreeze here, they were launching an online account service in Nebula for the first time.
But players who pay full price for games have every reason to demand the products that they were promised. And it was in that lens that Starbreeze did their players wrong.
Their failings on cross-save may seem minor in the long run. But Gearbox can’t afford to make the same mistakes Starbreeze did.
For that reason, the lack of a release date or window for cross-save is understandable. We can only hope we won’t have to wait for that much longer.
