Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick says the company's 2025 missteps with Borderlands 4 and Civilization 7 aren't a big problem in the grand scheme, and that publisher 2K is still "crushing it."
While Take-Two is in for a good year in 2026 – mainly because GTA 6 is going to make billions even if it's somehow bad – it's easy to overlook that 2025 wasn't exactly the best year in its history. Borderlands 4 released to somewhat lukewarm reception (despite solid reviews) but the game's PC port was the star of the show when it comes to that game's issues, with it only being rivalled by Monster Hunter Wilds as 2025's biggest PC debacle. And on top of that, Sid Meier's Civilization 7 reworked the series formula massively, so much so that the devs have released an update to rework it after fan feedback.
While Zelnick has previously taken "responsibility" for Civilization 7's failings, in an interview with the Game Business, Zelnick says, "I definitely can acknowledge missteps with both releases, but at the same time, these are great franchises, these are great iterations, and we couldn't be more thrilled of how the business is going broadly.
"I think 2K is crushing it across the board," he continues, adding: "If the worst you can say in a year when you've had this kind of [financial] performance is that a couple of titles did slightly less well than you would have hoped, and you're addressing whatever challenges you face and you're still generating profits with both titles… that's a high-class problem. I'll take those problems any day of the week."
He notes that "Borderlands 4 was highly successful. It will be a very profitable lifetime title. [Civilization] 7 was very successful and it will be a very profitable lifetime title," and adds that their respective challenges "are being addressed." Of course, it feels like with every single Civilization game, the new one is disliked until expansions and updates fill it out to become a favorite – at least, that's what happened with Civilization 5 and 6 – so hopefully Civ 7 will become a great game in the future.
