While numbers are strong, players in the community are frustrated.
Despite of the initial backlash surrounding Gearbox Software’s decision to make Borderlands 3 an Epic Games Store exclusive, the latest Borderlands game is the most played game in the franchise, Gearbox Software co-founder Randy Pitchford announces on Twitter.
According to Pitchford, on launch day on September 13th Borderlands 3 had twice as many PC gamers playing “as the all time peak concurrent players of Borderlands 2.” That all time peak, according to Steamcharts, is 123,596 players. That would mean that more than 240,000 players were playing Borderlands 3 on launch day via the Epic Games Store. These numbers are just an estimate and no official numbers have been announced.
A day later, that very record was again shattered by PC gamers. Pitchford expresses that the numbers exceeded his expectations and assures the PC community that their systems are holding strong, possibly referring to the servers staying up.
After Gearbox Software announced their latest game in the Borderlands franchise, PC gamers were very disappointed to learn that Borderlands 3 would be an Epic Games Store timed exclusive. It even went so far that gamers review-bombed Borderlands 2 on Steam in retaliation. Apparently the migration to the Epic Games Store wasn’t too detrimental for Borderlands 3-fans.
At least, going by the statement of Pitchford himself. In response many angry gamers expressed their disdain for the Epic Games Store and the fact that Gearbox ‘sold out’ to the young gaming gaming platform. Another group of angry Borderlands 3 players are asking for optimization for the PC version, stating that the announced numbers aren’t even relevant when lot’s of players are unable to play the game at a decent framerate.
So even though Gearbox broke their franchise record by more than doubling it’s concurrent player amount during launch day, it isn’t all rainbows and butterflies for Borderlands 3 as some players are either bitter about the migration to Epic Games Store, or unable to play the game because of performance issues.
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