Did Gearbox leak Borderlands 3 release details?

Sympathise with me for a moment. We are still recovering from what is one of the hardest days for games journalism: April Fools. How can one discern the truth from the fake news brought upon us on the first of April? See Gearbox has had a few Borderlands 3 leaks,  if rumours are to be believed, on the day when everyone’s fake news detectors are on high alert.

The first bit of release information was the all-important release date. The tweet, if it’s to be believed seemed to out Borderlands 3’s planned release date: September 13. There is also a confirmation of pre-order bonuses, but hey that’s par for the course these days.

The second tweet probably doesn’t seem like it adds much information. You can pre-order the game and get bonus stuff. Also, they claim to have so many guns it defies proper mathematical nomenclature. But look a little closer.

Tucked nice and cosy into the bottom-left is a logo for the Epic Store. For those not aware,  the Epic Games Store has been on quite the shopping spree scooping up all kinds of exclusive deals. Quantic Dream,  Phoenix Point and many others have put their games on PC, exclusively on the Epic Games Store. It’s been a source of much rage. The last-minute nature of these purchases is pretty sketchy. Most people accept exclusive games on consoles and the like as the companies invest money into companies to make these games to bolster their hardware. The late purchase is not essentially all the exclusivity with less of the actual developer support throughout the process.

Additionally, the Epic Store needs work. At present, there is a roadmap in place for the stores future, which sets basic items such as a shopping cart (allowing for multiple games to be purchased in one transaction) as a long term goal. Suffice to say, if this title goes exclusive, you can expect some backlash.

So this is potentially news for Borderlands 3. As you may expect, there has been no confirmation or denial of the information. The truth of the matter is gaming journalism tends to grow on two things: announcements and leaks. So it stands to reason, the April Fools is a bit of a minefield of fact and fiction. As is often the case we will have to wait and see.