With a now deleted tweet from the official Borderlands Twitter account specifically listing a September 13 release date for the highly anticipated title - with the text "Mayhem is Coming September 13". Which is hard to take any other way. The launch details for Borderlands 3 are expected this Friday, where a second also-deleted clip showcases the Epic logo alongside 2K and Gearbox.

Which can be seen here - as captured by Wario64.

Borderlands 3 releasing on Epic Games Store (from a Twitter ad video that is now deleted) pic.twitter.com/d4v17GapWZ

— Wario64 (@Wario64) April 1, 2019

Borderlands 3 being a timed exclusive on the Epic Games Store would be a huge boon for the storefront as the series is one of the best selling franchises of all time. Of course, going this route will no doubt stir up quite a bit of community backlash as the PC storefront is mostly viewed as an incomplete platform lacking many of Steam's features. In response to speculation, and leak, Gearbox head Randy Pitchford took to Twitter to confirm that any deals or exclusivity relating to publishing is the domain of 2K - whilst also hinting that the exclusivity deal with Epic Games Store might only be for six months. As opposed to the 12-month deals with titles like Metro Exodus.

As a customer, I’m happy to shop in different stores - already do! I’ve bought games from Xbox, Playstation, Switch, Steam, Origin, GOG, Humble, Uplay, Epic and other stores. To me, exclusives are fine when they come w/ advantages and when they are short – say, six months :) 2/3

— Randy Pitchford (@DuvalMagic) April 1, 2019

Randy then goes on to state that Borderlands 3 might feature full cross-platform play, stating "Myself and the team at Gearbox have a very keen interest in cross-platform play. We believe multi-platform support is a pre-requisite and Epic’s leadership with cross platform support is helpful to our interests there." With only a handful of big titles offering the feature, like Epic's own Fortnite, cross-platform play across PC and consoles for Borderlands 3 would be amazing. And in all honesty, if that means Epic Games Store is the platform to make that happen - so be it.