Borderlands 4’s release date pushed up by 2 weeks, and all I want to know is what this means for GTA 6

Game delays are a necessary but unfortunate part of the industry for a variety of reasons, but what about game release dates accelerating?

Borderlands 4 is one of these extremely rare cases, according to Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford, who posted a video this morning announcing that the looter shooter will be moving off of its original Sept. 23 date, and will now be coming out on Sept. 12 this year.

This is good news for gamers and Borderlands fans (and Bungie, whose extraction shooter Marathon is coming out on Sept. 23 too), but the circumstances are a bit odd to me. And that’s why I think it has something to do with Grand Theft Auto 6.

You see, every game publisher and developer will try to avoid GTA 6’s launch date like the plague this year, and with good reason. It’s likely the most hyped and anticipated entertainment release, maybe of all time. And Borderlands moving its date up tells me that GTA 6’s date is now locked in, and Take-Two Interactive wants its other big 2025 game further away from it.

How far away is enough, though? Moving the release up 11 days seems to mean that GTA 6 is coming out sometime in October; otherwise, why push up the date at all? We are edging ever closer to finally getting some actual news that’s not release date speculation and tinfoil hat theories.

It could be nothing. But it likely is something, because we still have not heard a peep about GTA 6 since its launch trailer almost two years ago now, and the game is still apparently locked in to release this year. Rockstar Games knows, Take-Two knows, and Gearbox probably knows, too, otherwise the movement of the release date doesn’t make too much sense unless 2K Games didn’t want BL4 to compete with Marathon.

GTA 6 is coming, and it’s looming over the industry, reportedly having games avoid its release window entirely. I think we’ll soon finally hear about what that exact window and date will be pretty soon.