Are you playing Borderlands 4 on console and have noticed odd performance problems the longer you play? You’re not alone.
Players have reported their frames per second count fluctuating and gameplay stuttering on console, even on PS5 Pro. In fact, oddly, particularly on the more powerful PS5 Pro.
Some players think this might be the result of Borderlands 4 suffering from a memory leak, although that remains unconfirmed for now. It seems restarting the game does help (some players are recommending restarting every few hours, which isn’t ideal), but it’s hard to say exactly why because reloading can trigger changes that would perhaps improve performance anyway, such as time of day lighting.
What we do know is that Gearbox is looking into the issue. In a tweet, Gearbox development chief Randy Pitchford told one disgruntled PS5 Pro user that quitting the game and restarting is a workaround until the developer sorts the problem out properly.
“Known issue of perf dropping on PS5 pro after several hours of continuous play,” he said. “Workaround until we patch: Quit game and restart. Sorry for the friction!”
All eyes are on Gearbox right now amid an internet backlash to the performance of Borderlands 4 — which has come despite huge player numbers on Steam. The studio released an update for the game on PC — without patch notes — that hasn’t seemed to fix much of anything.
Pitchford himself has set his sights on winning angry Borderlands 4 players over on social media. Since Borderlands 4’s huge Steam launch last week, Pitchford has issued confusing comments on why the console version of Borderlands 4 lacks a field of view (FOV) slider, promised that it would have been impossible to break the Borderlands 4 servers through sheer weight of player numbers alone, told people to “code your own engine and show us how it’s done, please,” and declared Borderlands 4 “a premium game made for premium gamers.” He’s even started telling Borderlands 4 players to refund the game on Steam if they’re that upset.
Borderlands 4: All Vault Hunter Skill Trees Ranked
Borderlands 4: All Vault Hunter Skill Trees Ranked
So, what’s the truth of the matter? Borderlands 4 is currently on a mixed Steam review rating, with most of the negative comments revolving around performance. The tech experts at Digital Foundry have said their initial analysis of Borderlands 4 on PC shows significant stutter problems, and have advised against running the game on its ‘Badass’ graphics setting, which suggests there are indeed problems with the Unreal Engine 5 title.
Gearbox has posted a Borderlands 4 Nvidia Optimization guide on Steam, advising players how to optimize their graphics settings for “better performance and framerates” on PC with the Nvidia app, although users report mixed results.
Gearbox has also issued a piece of advice to PC gamers that to me reads like an effort to prevent players from making knee-jerk reactions to the game’s performance as soon as they’ve changed their settings: “Please note that any time you change any of your graphics settings, your shaders will need to recompile. Please keep playing for at least 15 minutes to see how your PC’s performance has changed.”
If you are delving into Borderlands 4, don’t go without updated hourly SHiFT codes list. We’ve also got a huge interactive map ready to go and a badass Borderlands 4 planner tool courtesy of our buds at Maxroll. Plus check out our expert players’ choices for which character to choose (no one agreed).
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
