With the release of Borderlands 3 on the horizon, many are excited to dive back into Pandora and everything the looter shooter's sequel has to offer. However, there are several who are not happy with the Epic Store exclusivity deal that protested by review bombing the titles on Steam. This review bombing did manage to get a response from Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford.

Many see this as the only way that the PC community can speak out against the exclusivity deal, with several citing various reasons to not download the barebones Epic Store. But a massive amount of negative reviews has a way of pushing some players, protestors or otherwise, away from the titles.

This did not happen in the case of Borderlands. In the build-up to Borderlands 3, Borderlands 2 saw a huge gain of nearly 90% of average players in the last 30 days, with it peaking at impressive 59,333 concurrent player count. The Pre-Sequel, which is often overshadowed by other titles in the franchise, even saw a boost of 101.5%, peaking at 12K players over the last month. And the remastered version of Borderlands is also enjoying its day in the sun, though it appears that Borderlands 2 is getting most of the love.

This could boil down to several reasons, including the storyline, the playable characters, the fact the 4K update was free, or even something Gearbox happened to slip in such as the recently discovered Borderlands 2 rainbow rarity. Either way, the review-bombing attempt does not seem to be working, and the Epic Store certainly isn't fazed by it.

borderlands 3 epic store review bombing

Epic Games' CEO has even recently spoken frankly about how the company will continue to pursue exclusivity deals, with Borderlands 3 just being the most recent title to join the fray. And while consumers have a number of issues with the launcher, developers are making more without consumers assuming the cost. Perhaps this will lead to a better platform by Steam, but until then, Borderlands 3 will be locked to the Epic Store for six months.

Borderlands 3 releases September 13 on PC, PS4, and Xbox One

Source: Steam Charts