Too Soon to Say if Battleborn Will Be a Borderlands-Like Hit, Take-Two Says

Borderlands developer Gearbox Software's recently released shooter Battleborn is off to an "encouraging" start, but it's too soon to say if it will enjoy the kind of success Borderlands had.

That's according to Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, who spoke about the early reaction to Battleborn during an earnings call today.

"The initial results are very encouraging. [But] it is early yet," he said. "The scores are good, consumers like it, a lot of people playing it and really loving the gameplay. But I wouldn't want you to draw the conclusion that the Battleborn curve is necessarily the Borderlands curve. We just don't have any of that information yet."

Earlier this month, Battleborn creative director Randy Varnell said the game enjoyed a "solid" start and was in fact tracking ahead of the early numbers for Borderlands. He added that Borderlands had something of a slow start, but sales eventually accelerated, and surmised that the same could be true for Battleborn.

Borderlands is now one of 2K's crown jewels, but it is too soon to say if the same will be true for Battleborn.

"We're encouraged, and we feel good about it, [but] it remains to be seen how it performs," Zelnick said about the game.

The first Borderlands sold 2 million copies in its first two months back in 2009, and went on to sell 7 or 8 million copies in its lifetime, according to Varnell.

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.

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 review.

You can also catch up on today's Take-Two announcements through the links below.

• GTA 5, Red Dead Redemption Developer Will Announce New Games "Soon"
• GTA 5 Has Now Shipped 65 Million Copies
• Here Is What Rockstar's Parent Company Thinks About PS4/Xbox One Hardware Upgrades