Gearbox Head: Borderlands 3 on PlayStation ‘Inevitable’

Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford says Borderlands 3 should get a crossover PlayStation very soon.

Cross-play may be the most important new feature of modern games, especially for titles with live services and microtransactions. Borderlands 3, which has sold 15 million copies, is one such game. Borderlands 3 with cross-play has yet to launch on the biggest gaming platform – PlayStation 4. That should change soon.

On TwitterBorderlands 3 crossover on PS4/PS5 is a must, Randy Pitchford, Head of Gearbox:

“Borderlands 3 has supported cross-play for quite some time. The future addition of PlayStation to cross-play forr BL3 is now what I consider inevitable. More information will come as soon as we have it,” Pitchford said.

So why was cross-play left out? Speculation confirms that because of Sony cross-play tax It requires publishers to pay an additional amount to enable the feature, and pay certain fees to Sony if players purchase more items from other non-Sony platforms. For example, someone can play Borderlands 3 on PS4 and Xbox, and if they buy more items on Xbox, that could result in a fee.

In May 2021, Pitchford confirmed that publisher 2K Games had forced Gearbox to withdraw cross-play. Details were scant but everyone suspected it was due to the infamous cross-play fee.

“Good news or bad news first? The good news: An update has been made for Borderlands 3 for the release that includes full cross-play support across all platforms. Bad news: For certification, we have asked the publisher to remove cross-play support for PlayStation consoles,” Pitchford said at the time.

Gearbox’s latest Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands game will ship with a full cross-play on PlayStation, Xbox and PC, so it’s clear that 2K Games has struck some kind of deal with Sony on the matter.