Submitted by YRS TRULY

Borderlands 4

Influencer Marketing

YRS TRULY built a three-phase creator campaign for 2K around the UK launch of Borderlands 4, reporting over 27,000,000 views in total.

27,000,000total views
375,000hours watched
6.07%average engagement rate
27,000,000content pieces

Case in 60 seconds

The UK launch of Borderlands 4 was a landmark moment for 2K, and a sequel to a long-loved franchise arrived carrying three problems at once: fan trust, lapsed and peripheral players lost to competing titles, and cultural distinctiveness.

The campaign appears to turn on the idea that Borderlands is recognised for unexpected delight rather than conventional games marketing, so a launch behaving like the property itself would read to fans as earned rather than sold at them.

YRS TRULY built a multi-stage, creator-driven campaign echoing the creativity and unexpected delight the agency describes as definitive of Borderlands, organised as ten activations across a three-phase plan moving from preview to pre-launch to launch.

Ten activations ran across three phases: educational content bringing players up to date on the series, collaborations with TommyInnit, CDawgVA and SpiffingBrit, a bespoke interactive Twitch overlay produced for the game, and a custom animated music video made with a creative team. In-character cosplayers took over London Waterloo station, and the agency supported hands-on events in London, Cologne and Los Angeles, with 465 content pieces produced across organic and paid.

YRS TRULY reports over 27,000,000 views in total, 375,000 hours watched by launch weekend, an average engagement rate of 6.07%, and 465 content pieces across organic and paid.

Strategy Breakdown

The primary strategy-learning section — interpretation, not a press-release summary.

Borderlands fans whose trust the launch needed to earn, together with the lapsed and peripheral players the page describes as lost to competition, reached through UKI creators.
Based on the available evidence, the tension sits between a fanbase that treats Borderlands as its own and a sequel that has to reach past that fanbase, so the work had to read as fan-facing while functioning as recruitment.
Game launches compete for a narrow window of attention against other releases, and the page frames lapsed and peripheral players as already lost to competition, so the campaign appears built to reclaim attention rather than announce a date.
The educational content suggests a reading that lapsed players stay away because a long-running series becomes hard to re-enter, so catching viewers up on the story removes the cost of returning before any purchase decision is asked for.

Creative & Execution System

Assets & channels

  • Twitch

Partners

  • YRS TRULY (lead_agency)

Participation mechanic

  • Audiences took part through the bespoke interactive Twitch overlay produced for creator streams, and through hands-on events in London, Cologne and Los Angeles where players handled the game rather than watching coverage of it.

Creator role

  • TommyInnit — creator
  • CDawgVA — creator
  • SpiffingBrit — creator

Results & Evidence

MetricValueResult type
total viewsOver 27,000,000 views in totalvideo_views
hours watched375,000 hours watched by launch weekendperformance
average engagement rateAverage ER of 6.07%engagement_rate
content piecesWe achieved over 27,000,000 views, 465 content pieces (both organic and paid), and an average engagement rate of 6.07%.engagement_rate
activations deliveredWe devised ten unique activations over the course of a three-phase plan, leading from preview, through pre-launch, to a robust launch campaign.output

Why YRS TRULY's strategy worked

  1. 1

    A sequel campaign that borrows the tone of the property rather than the conventions of games marketing gives creators material suited to their own formats, which is how ten activations hold together as one launch rather than separate stunts.

  2. 2

    Splitting a launch into preview, pre-launch and launch phases lets trust-building work sit ahead of reach work, so the fans who validate a sequel meet it earlier than the lapsed players the campaign is trying to recover.

  3. 3

    Commissioning owned production such as a bespoke interactive Twitch overlay and an animated music video gives a creator roster shared assets, which keeps distributed content recognisable across channels without asking every creator to repeat one brief.

  4. 4

    Physical activations such as a cosplayer takeover of a commuter station and hands-on events in three cities produce footage a creator roster can carry, which extends a location-bound moment past the people who happened to be present.

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