Gearbox CEO drops hints about Borderlands 4 difficulty level

Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford has shared some insights into the difficulty level for players in the upcoming Borderlands 4.

The upcoming title is scheduled to launch on September 12 for PlayStation 5, Xbox consoles and PC, while the game will arrive on Nintendo Switch 2 on October 3.

Ahead of the launch, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford admitted that he was ‘nervous’ about players’ potential reaction to the challenging difficulty in Borderlands 4.

Speaking at Gamescom 2025, Pitchford shared what level of challenges players should expect from the game once its releases.

“We have lots of players that actually aren’t interested in deep, hard challenges; lots of people that love just exploring the Borderlands or spending time with the characters,” he said.

Read more: Gearbox CEO confirms exciting feature in Borderlands 4

Pitchford continued, “I’m a little nervous because there are points of Borderlands 4 that are more challenging.”

However, players will have an alternate way around it as they could level up somewhere else in the game.

“One of the coolest things about Borderlands 4, because of the nature of the RPG, is if anything is a little challenging for you, you can just grind somewhere and level up and become more powerful,” the Gearbox CEO said.

He added, “You will find that things that were hard when you were a little chump will become trivial when you become a badass. But we definitely have pushed the challenges quite a lot, especially with bosses and boss fight mechanics.”

Available for pre-order, the upcoming title in the looter shooter will launch in three editions—Standard, Deluxe, and Super Deluxe—on all platforms, with prices set at $69.99, $99.99, and $129.99, respectively.