š® Borderlands 4 Will Surpass 100 Million Units, Techland Promises The Most Diverse World in The Beast and New Content in AC: Mirage...
Borderlands 4 Will Surpass 100 Million Units, Techland Promises The Most Diverse World in The Beast, New Content in AC: Mirage, Layoffs at Cloud Chamber and more!
Hello friends,
Today is September 2nd 2025 and I hope youāve had a great week š
In todayās news:
š® Borderlands 4 Will Surpass 100 Million Units
š® Techland Promises The Most Diverse World in The Beast
š® New Content in AC: Mirage
š® Layoffs at Cloud Chamber
ā” Lightning Round!
š«” True Tribute!
š Personal Update
All of this is brought to you in a 5 min format ā²ļø
Letās dig in!
š® Borderlands 4 Will Surpass 100 Million Units
Or at least thatās what Randy Pitchford (Gearbox CEO) said recently in an exclusive to Insider Gaming while the game is prepping for a release on September 12.
During Gamescom, Insider Gaming sat down with Pitchford, who made all the Borderlands possible, and he is nothing if not optimistic about the upcoming release as well as the future of the 4th installment to the franchise. Among other things, he is confident that the game will break 100 million units sold:
Weāre just now beginning to dig into what our post-launch is, and weāve got some extremely exciting plans that I cannot wait to share and talk about.
Weāre now expert at making Borderlands 4, and when youāre making a game, you kind of figure out how to make it as you ship it. Thatās one of the reasons why our post-launch content tends to be so good.
Thinking about Borderlands ābeyond the gameā, itās so wild to me. I remember I came to Gamescom with Borderlands 1, just trying to scream from the tallest mountain to get anyone to pay attention to it and nobody cared.
A lot of people predicted that Borderlands wasnāt going to work.
Now, here we are with the game franchise, we will break 100 million units with this launch, easy, all in with the franchise.
Iām glad to see such confidence from the people who make these projects a reality. Though it sounds a little overambitious to me, but then again, Iām not the biggest fan of this franchise, so what do I know? š
Are you looking forward to Borderlands 4?
š® Techland Promises The Most Diverse World in The Beast
And in another exclusive interview at Gamescom, Insider Gaming talked with Nathan Lemaire, Game Director for Techlandās upcoming Dying Light: The Beast.
Aside from other things, Lemaire shared that the world in the upcoming game will be the biggest, the fullest and most diverse the series has to offer by far:
We wanted to come back to something that is more grounded, but we also wanted to explore some new settings. With Castor Woods, we have created probably the most diverse world we have ever created for this franchise, mostly because youāve got the Old Town, then an industrial biome, some farmland, or swampy areas, a villageā¦
Whatās cool is that it creates a renewed experience across each biome.
One thing that I like to repeat is that Castor Woods hides many secrets. We have lots of little things for players (to find).
We have things that are hidden, like there are some maps that players can find that lead to secret locations, and they will find interesting things there.
We have a lot of collectibles that expand the lore, some trivia about Castor Woods and the people there; itās really full of little things like this.
And this is something I personally look forward to. I really enjoyed playing the first two games in the franchise, even though Iām not always agreeing with the direction the developers are taking when prioritising features (yes, Iām among those crazy people who donāt like parkour in these games). Iām very curious to see if what these guys are saying is true, as almost everyone who develops an open-world game claims that their world is ābig and diverseā, but only a few actually pull it off.
Weāll see on September 18th š
š® New Content in AC: Mirage
A very surprising news was recently shared by Ubisoft, which teased a free DLC release later this year for Assassinās Creed: Mirage.
According to the post on an official X account:
Assassin's Creed Mirage players, we have a surprise coming your way later this year!
š New story chapter & missions set in 9th century AlUla
š® Gameplay improvements for the base game and the new location
š All for free
Stay tuned!
Personally, Iām very surprised since these kinds of updates are usually sold for a hefty amount of money, and I have only a few possible explanations why Ubisoft is feeling so chairitable. Either Mirage is not doing very well, and itās their way of attracting more people to buy the main game, or this is a much smaller update than itās being advertised as.
Regardless, we will be able to judge it ourselves soon enough, but for some reason, this update only has a vague āthis yearā date.
Have you played Mirage? What do you think about the game?
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š® Layoffs at Cloud Chamber
And of course, more layoffs. This time, Take-Two Interactive has laid off around 30% of staff at Cloud Chamber, which is responsible for the next Bioshock game.
So many things are happening with Cloud Chamber these days. First, there was news about a failed executive review, then the Take-Two CEO said that the game is going to happen 100% and now the reduction of 1/3 of the studio. And thatās on top of everything else that happened with this poor franchise ever since this game came into the picture more than a decade ago.
According to Jason Schreier, a decision was made to ārework certain aspects that are core to a BioShock gameā, which resulted in āreducing the size of the development team to focus on this work and give the game more time in development.ā
I honestly donāt know if there is even anything left to say on the topic of layoffs, especially in the video games industry, but all of that doesnāt really sound all that smart, considering that this game is vaguely scheduled to be released in the next 2 years.
ā” Lightning Round!
1ā¦2ā¦3ā¦Go!
š® Microsoft Still Canāt Figure Out How To Price XBOX ROG Ally
Speaking of stuff thatās scheduled to be released. XBOX Ally still doesnāt have a price tag, which is extremely weird considering that the console already has both the date for pre-orders and the release (October 16).
According to IGN and Jason Ronald, Microsoft's VP of XBOX Gaming Devices, the company is still trying to define the appropriate price:
This is always a challenge, and you always try to find the right balance between affordability and price point, and I think especially in a mobile form factor that also adds in dimensions such as battery life in as well. And then, as you said, the macro-economic climate is challenging
I think we will have to... we need more time to figure the macro-economic impact to pricing, and that's why we'll be sharing more later, in September and October.
Fingers crossed for less than $1000 š
š® Bungie CEO Leaving After 23 Years
And another case of sad departures happened at Bungie recently, where Pete Parsons announced that he is leaving the company after spending 23 years there, with 10 of them as CEO:
When I was asked to lead Bungie in 2015, my goal was to grow us into a studio capable of creating and sustaining iconic, generation-spanning entertainment. Weāve been through so much together: we launched a bold new chapter for Destiny, built an enviable, independent live ops organization capable of creating and publishing its own games, and joined the incredible family at Sony Interactive Entertainment.
Today marks the right time for a new beginning. The future of Bungie will be in the hands of a new generation of leaders, and I am thrilled to announce that Justin Truman will be stepping into leadership as Bungie's new Studio Head.
I wonder what it means for the Marathon and Destiny 2 nowā¦
š® Escape From Tarkov 1.0 Release
And one of the last news items from Gamescom this year. Escape From Tarkov finally announced a 1.0 release date (yes, this game is technically still in Beta).
After almost a decade in Beta, the game is set to hit a full release mark on 15.11.2025, according to the trailer. With multiple gameplay improvements, story content, and changes to mechanics, maps, weapons, and a lot of other stuff.
Now, I have only one question: Does that include a Steam version?
š«” True Tribute!
Today I wanted to salute
and ! is a true champion when it comes to collecting and curating the best stuff Substack has to offer when it comes to video games. If you are someone like me and you try to read as much stuff as possible, you know that some things get lost, but thanks to you will never miss anything notable!
š Personal Update
Phew, Iām finally on my vacation break during this week, and Iām only now understanding how tired I actually was.
These last few months were quite intense. From the pressure of releasing our first game to multiple hotfixes and the first update, I hadnāt had any chance to catch a break. And even though itās just a week, Iām glad to finally have some time off and focus on other things.
Hopefully, I will have something interesting for you guys in the foreseeable future!
This is all the news I have for you folks today.
Thanks for making it this far! š
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Have a great week!
Alex from Gamedev Relay.
Thanks for the shoutout! Happy to hear the recap helps!