Battleborn Early Sales Exceeding First Borderlands, Dev Says

Gearbox Software's new shooter Battleborn is off to a solid start, it seems. Creative director Randy Varnell said during a recent Twitch Kalology livestream that sales of the game are "tracking just ahead" of the first Borderlands game back in 2009. Overall, Varnell said he is "cautiously optimistic" about Battleborn.

"Ultimately, Borderlands [was an] extremely successful new game for us, and even Borderlands 1 went on to sell, I think, almost 7, 8 million units in its lifetime," he said, as reported by VideoGamer.com. "Battleborn is actually tracking just ahead of where Borderlands was on the sales, and we think it's going to be a game that is going to work like that. A decent, solid launch. We're seeing steady and growing user counts on all three platforms, and hoping that word of mouth is going to take us even further."

Overall, Varnell said Battleborn's launch was "pretty good." After the rush of new users on launch day, May 3, the game has seen growth on a daily basis "at a steady rate."

"Hopefully, we'll continue to see that go up," Varnell said.

The first Borderlands sold 2 million copies in its first two months back in 2009.

Battleborn debuted at the top of the charts in the UK during its launch week. However, it remains to be seen how well the game has sold in North America.

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2K Games has not yet shared any official sales numbers, though we may learn more later this month when parent company Take-Two Interactive reports earnings on May 18.

In February, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford said Battleborn represents the company's "biggest investment" ever, calling the game a "big bet."

"We've invested more than Borderlands 1 and 2 added together into Battleborn," he said at the time. "And we don't even know if people will be interested or not."

In other news about Battleborn, Gearbox said at PAX East this year that the game's DLC will include references to Borderlands 3.

For more on Battleborn, check out GameSpot's video review above or written review here.