LogInThe team says the crash was a deliberately staged comedic bit.
Borderlands 4 ships in just a few days, meaning Gearbox and 2K's marketing teams are now working overtime to promote the game and secure a strong first week after launch – the most important week in terms of sales for most titles. What could be seen as a spanner in the works for them, however, is the latest episode of Conan O'Brien's Clueless Gamer show, during which Borderlands 4 unexpectedly crashed, with a notification also revealing it had done so several times off-camera as well.
Shared on the Team Coco YouTube channel, the episode features around eight minutes of Borderlands 4 gameplay, with Conan O'Brien attempting to navigate the game, dissing Claptrap, cracking occasional jokes, and playing a first-person shooter with a controller – his level of gaming skill roughly what you would expect, but that's beside the point.
The real talking point, however, wasn't O'Brien's aim, but a crash that occurred mid-episode, leaving the host confused as to what could've caused it. Additionally, the on-screen notification stated that "the game has crashed more than once recently," which contradicted the words of co-host Aaron "Bley" Bleyaert, who said he had never seen the crash happen before.
While certainly comedic and probably not what Gearbox wanted to see when they provided a copy of the unreleased game, the team stated that the crash was exactly that – a comedic bit deliberately caused by Bley.
As seen in the video, the co-host did something with the keyboard seconds before the game crashed, and the crash only occurred after Bley told O'Brien to hold the LB button on the controller. With the version of Borderlands 4 played by the comedian labeled "marketing_playtest," some commenters speculated it may have included development menus and features, which could have caused the crash. As such, this likely won't affect regular gamers, since the final release obviously won't include developer-only features.
Ultimately, whether it was genuinely a gag or a game flaw disguised as one to avoid affecting Borderlands 4's marketing is known only to O'Brien and his team, leaving the rest of us to draw our own conclusions. That said, the crash, coming on the heels of prior reports about poor optimization, frequent crashes, hitching, stuttering, and framerate drops, makes it feel like the joke's timing – and target – was poorly chosen.
Borderlands 4 launches this Thursday, September 11, on PC and on Friday on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. Learn more about the game here and don't forget to join our 80 Level Talent platform and our new Discord server, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, TikTok, and Threads, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.