Borderlands 4 Sees Steam Resurgence Thanks to New DLC Character and Free Weekend

Borderlands 4 is climbing the Steam charts as players become enamored with its latest DLC character – a Vault Hunter named Loveless the Hacker.

Gearbox Software's newest Borderlands title faced a rocky period after its September 2025 launch. Despite achieving the biggest launch in the looter shooter series' history, technical problems on PC and console, along with Gearbox's response, led to a sharp drop in players. Since January of this year, SteamDB has recorded concurrent user numbers that have struggled to surpass 10,000.

Borderlands 4 may have launched to generally favorable reviews (IGN gave it an 8/10), but it has struggled to regain player interest – until now. On Friday, September 10, Loveless the Hacker was released, a DLC character equipped with advanced cybernetics. She is just one part of the larger Story Pack 2 release, and she appears to be giving the game a second wind.

"Two minds exist inside Loveless, forming a synchronized set of lethal skills that strike as one," a description for Loveless reads. "Through a symbiotic melding of the biological and digital, this ex-Anshin hacker-turned-assassin has become a superior lifeform. Equipped with the highest-end cybernetics, Loveless shares her psyche with a digital virus of her own creation, which can digistruct into a physical Wyrm form to act as a deadly extension of her shared, perfection-seeking will."

At the time of this writing, Borderlands 4 is enjoying around 26,000 concurrent players on Steam alone. That's the highest it's been since November 2025, and far above the 17,000-player peak it reached with the launch of Story Pack 1 in March. The base game has also now cracked the Top 5 sellers on Steam in the U.S., and it even landed at number nine on the global Top 10 list.

Player counts appear to be rising even further, with Steam reviews specifically pointing to Loveless as the reason they've returned to the planet Kairos. Many highlight the voice acting from actress Carin Gilfry as a particular positive, but you can probably guess what many others had to say.

"Bought the game solely because of Loveless," one review said. "This is how you market."

Bro she’s so badLoveless? But girl I LOVE YOU pic.twitter.com/ASqXkrZhhX

"Actually a nice character," a popular review said. "Looks good, good design, is insanely OP (can solo bosses without any help). But her alternate heads are a bit -- meh. And she costs $9.99. The VA put some effort into it though. Overall – I think she fits."

"Letting me buy the Vault Hunter without having to buy the DLC story pack is the correct call," another fan said, referencing Loveless' $10 price tag compared to the recently released Story Pack 2 expansion. "Glad they learned. Also, step on me Mommy."

Several factors are contributing to Borderlands 4's player boost on Steam specifically. In addition to Loveless being a popular addition, Story Pack 2: FL4K and the Last Resort has also helped. There's also the fact that Gearbox is running a 50% off sale, bringing the price to $34.99 during a free-to-play weekend that runs until September 14.

It's unclear if these numbers will hold, but it seems to be a winning weekend for Borderlands 4 nonetheless. For more, you can read about what parent company Take-Two had to say about Gearbox's latest as it heads into its second year on the market. You can also read about how Saber took a dig at Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford.