Borderlands 4 is still a few months away from its September release, so developer Gearbox’s CEO Randy Pitchford is asking fans to please, please send all of their good vibes, thoughts, and prayers to the FPS in the meantime. He’s begging, really.
“Want the best Borderlands?” Pitchford says on Twitter. “Root for us and cheer us on.”
Pitchford’s request comes after Gothalion, audience director for publisher Midwest Games, wondered in another Twitter post why Pitchford muted a fan for expressing “mild takes” about Borderlands 4 looking too much like Borderlands 3 in February. At the time, Pitchford said that he didn’t “need this energy […] as the team and I bust our ass to make BL4 the best Borderlands game yet.”
Now, to Gothalion, Pitchford says that he “didn’t see any critique” in the fan’s original message. “I just saw shitty negativity that was demotivating.”
“If you take [a] developer’s passion for granted, we’ll all pay the price,” he continues. “I love criticism and, thankfully, I have never been in short supply. Don’t gaslight me on his post. It wasn’t criticism. It was pessimism. It’s toxic for people killing themselves for your entertainment, so fuck that noise.”
Even prior to this recent scuffle, Pitchford has earned himself a reputation among Borderlands fans for being, let’s say, impatient. There is a Reddit thread with thousands of upvotes dedicated to discussing the last time he had a “meltdown on Twitter.” One fan laments, in another thread, the fact that Pitchford’s “childish outbursts, constant blocking of critics, and refusal to take accountability really doesn’t give me hope for the future of Borderlands.” But, as always, simply logging off seems like the solution for everyone here.