Borderlands 3 gave us guns with legs. Borderlands 4 just gave me a gun that walked out on me. My dad would be proud.

None of my friends can get the game to start past main menu When you quit and restart, it doesn’t close the original instance and it still uses full memory It doesn’t matter how good the game is. AAA devs deserve low reviews on their games until they learn to release working titles. Indie devs release working games but multi million dollar companies can’t? Pathetic.

Stutterlands 4 Review: An Unholy Trio of Pricing, UE5 and Denuvo

I’ve been a Borderlands fan for years. The chaos, the humor, the endless loot grind... it’s always been about fun first, never too serious. But Borderlands 4? It feels like Gearbox got dazzled by Unreal Engine 5, slapped on a $70 price tag, and forgot the part where the game is supposed to actually run.. Randy Pitchford said fans should have “realistic expectations.” But if “realistic expectations” means paying $70 for a stutter ridden mess that crashes every few minutes and wrapped in Denuvo DRM that tanks performance even further, then no thanks. That’s not realism, that’s laziness dressed up as ambition. The stutters are constant, the crashes are brutal, and it feels like the game fights you harder than the bosses do. Every firefight turns into a slideshow, every new area feels like a gamble whether the game will hold together or not. For a series built on fast, frantic chaos, it’s painful when the biggest challenge is just keeping the game from breaking.

Unreal Engine 5 Looks Pretty, But Plays Ugly

On paper, Borderlands 4 looks gorgeous. Unreal Engine 5’s lighting, reflections, and seamless world transitions give it a scale and detail the franchise never had before. But the moment you actually play, the shine fades. Stutters, frame drops, and bizarre loading hiccups pop up constantly. Even top-tier GPUs like the RTX 4080 and 5080 are struggling to keep 60FPS in 4K with DLSS on, and if the cutting edge hardware can’t do it, what chance do the average players have? Gamers on Twitter couldn’t even crack 60fps at 1080p with an RTX 3070, a card that’s miles above the so called minimum requirements. That’s not just a hiccup, that’s proof the system requirements are complete nonsense. And Gearbox basically shrugged, warning that if you don’t meet their next-gen minimums, the game might be unplayable. Imagine being told that before you even buy it. It’s not honesty, it’s them admitting they knew it was broken, but also knew people would still pay anyway.

Pricing Feels Like a Joke We’re Not In On

And then there’s the price. $70 for the base game is steep already, but $100 for Deluxe and $130 for Super Deluxe? Come on. For a game this unstable, it feels like paying premium for early access to a beta test. Randy Pitchford’s comment about real fans supporting the price was honestly insulting. Fans aren’t ATMs. We want to support the game, not bankroll optimization patches. It’s insane how devs keep shipping games with game-breaking bugs like it’s normal. These aren’t tiny glitches/bugs, they’re constant crashes and stutters, and they want full price for this mess?

What’s Still Great

I won’t pretend Borderlands 4 is all bad. In fact, underneath the mess, it might be the best Borderlands since 2. The humor lands, the gunplay is as addictive as ever, and the new mechanics have real potential to take the series forward. The tragedy is that none of it matters when the game can’t stay stable long enough for you to enjoy it. Every stutter, every crash, every performance hiccup turns what could have been the return of peak Borderlands into an expensive tech demo. And that’s what stings the most, there’s a damn good game here, maybe even a great one, but it’s buried under technical failures and a price tag that feels like a cruel joke.

Final Thoughts

Borderlands 4 should’ve been a victory lap. The full power of Unreal Engine 5, a fanbase that stuck around through every spin-off and cash grab and this is what we get? A broken, stutter-filled mess hidden behind Denuvo and a $70 paywall. Gearbox didn’t just drop the ball, they spiked it into the dirt and told us to clap anyway. The cruel part? This is actually the best Borderlands since 2. The writing hits, the gunplay is fire, and the world begs to be explored. But none of that matters when you can’t play for more than ten minutes without a hitch, a crash, or your frames falling off a cliff. It’s like locking a gourmet meal behind a glass case and handing us a plastic fork. Randy Pitchford told us to have realistic expectations... Fine. Here’s mine: I expect a $70 game not to run like a beta test. I expect a studio with Gearbox’s legacy not to let DRM strangle its own players. I expect respect. Instead, we got excuses. Unless Gearbox pulls its head out of its own hype machine, Borderlands 4 could kill the franchise. First the garbage and total joke of a movie, now this broken mess, they’re turning a legacy into a joke.

Don't Buy until they Fix the Performance Issues

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Terrible optimization. Another Unreal Engine 5 casualty. Not worth buying in its current state unless you have a NASA PC.

The refund button is broken, this fat guy just keeps yelling "No Refunds!" at me so I guess I have to enjoy the game.

Terrible, terrible performance. Worst I've ever seen. Turned it down to Low graphics presents and couldn't hit 60 FPS, even with FSR upscaling on my RX 6900 XT.

My nan runs better than this and she's crippled with arthritis

Unoptimised and horrible. Already refunded as it doesn't run beyond 20-30 fps.

WARNING: If you want above 60fps 1440p and don't have at least a 3080, I would not buy the game! The performance and optimization is classic untouched unreal engine 5 so it runs really poorly. I have a 3080, i7-12700f, 32gb ram, and an ssd. Averaging 60-90 fps on medium settings (1440p) with DLSS on performance in the tutorial and first open world section. I don't like framegen, but with that on instead I get around 140-160. I haven't had any crashes so I may just be lucky - I did update drivers for BL4 so that may play a role if you run into it. Visual wise it looks good, but it does not have the same feel as the other borderlands games - it looks like an Unreal engine game (whereas in the past the BL games looked very distinct). Outside performance the game itself is good so far. New vault hunters are fun and the gunplay is great. Story seems a lot more "serious" with most of the real wack comedy in side-missions. All in all, if you can run it - it's fun. I got lucky so my experience is positive, but the devs did a not-so-great optimization job and if its runs bad on your computer I would just return it. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For those curious about my settings with a similar build: Nvidia Control Panel: Updated to most recent drivers Manage 3D settings -> Shader Cache Size: 10 GB Ingame Settings: Basic: windowed fullscreen 2560x1440 No frame limit vsync off FOV at 103 Advanced: Anti-Aliasing: enabled Upscaling method: DLSS Upscaling quality: Performance Scene capture quality: High Nvidia Reflex: Boost HLOD: Medium Geometry: Medium Texture Quality: Medium Texture Streaming Speed: High Anistropic Filtering: x8 Foliage density: Medium Volumetric Fog: medium Volumetric cloud: medium Shadow Quality: Medium Directional Shadow Quality: Medium Volumetric Cloud Shadows: Disabled Lighting Quality: Medium Reflections Quality: Medium Shading Quality: Medium Post Process Quality: Medium Motion Blur amount: 0.0 Motion Blur quality: Off

Only real fans will buy this and find a way to make it happen.

Feels like BL2 again, and I’m loving it. Tons of quests and side quests and side-side quests, loot everywhere, and just plain fun. Played 4 hours co-op with a friend and had zero issues, even though I’ve heard others hit bugs. Will update as I go, but so far this is the Borderlands I’ve been waiting for.

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2025-09-12 Update I originally posted this review simply because I'd been hearing folks complain about bugs and performance, and I wanted folks to know I hadn't hit any. Since the review has got much more attention than I anticpated, I thought I'd provide my scale for how I will ultimately rate Borderlands 4. Hopefully this helps somebody. Better than... Pre-Sequel: Game feels like more than a phoned in cash grab [ ] Tiny Tina's: I want to play through a second time [ ] Borderlands 3: I want to keep playing after reaching whatever Ultimate Vault Hunter mode in this game [ ] Borderlands 2: Not possible. This game is in my top 5 of all time. Played hundreds of hours on multiple generations of console, skipped work, pulled all nighters, went to sleep thinking about it, woke up wondering when I could get my next "hit." (Seriously.)

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Trap God suggested I add my config. Great idea. Thank you. My system is fairly good but nowhere near best. I run at 1440@60fps. CPU and GPU were both working hard with the game's "benchmark" settings, which were mostly in the Very High and High category. Those are actually much higher than 2K/Gearbox's recommended settings for my 4070Ti at 1440p. I encountered no problems at all, though. My System Windows 11 i7-13700KF 64GB RAM SSD (no idea the quality) RTX 4070 Ti I don't like my fans so loud, so after playing, I reduced all the settings to the ones in the recommended chart, but haven't yet played again to see the result.

borderlands 4 fps

so far the story and gameplay are actually really fun, but it really is frustating when even me with a 4070ti super can barely get 60fps with upscaling. this is a cartoon game. fix optimization with a few updates and i think this could be really good but wow this may be some of the worst optimization ever.

I'm not sure what the fuss about with some folks pertaining to that they can't run the game. They prob have AMD toaster machines.. any who.... For me it runs perfect, 14900k, 96gb ddr5 ram, and 5090 aorus master on two OLED G9 95SC stacked. The story, graphics, the vault hunters, abilities, and guns are pretty sick so far. If you do bounties you unlock sweet guns and i have a few i can't use them right away until i get to a certain level. However, the ones i did obtain mixed with my vault hunter - Amon is UBER!!! SO MUCH DMG!!!! Playing on hard difficulty makes it look easy with Amon. I'm also liking the customization that you can do for your character, echo, weapons you name it. So far 10/10 until otherwise or I complete the game. I highly recommend anyone who can be able to run it, get it!!!!

I have not been plagued so far by performance issues and have enjoyed a lot of the changes they've made. Most importantly the writing has taken a step in the right direction. World events feel fun and interesting and the world is beautiful. Though things do feel strangely not borderlands here somehow. I'll update this when I play some more but if you're looking for more borderlands this is it and they've adapted well.

I am playing in medium settings on borderless 2k on an SSD. 6700XT Ryzen 7 7800X3D Game is very fun so far, I have not experienced any crashing myself. Denuvo should be removed, and more optimization needs to happen. If you didn't see it, they released an NVIDIA optimization guide which is laughable. Ya'll can do better. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1285190/view/679602429802577921?l=english

Take-Two and 2K games have updated all their games Terms of Service, turning this game as well as all of their other games into literal spyware. Important Info in Terms of Service: • Mods are a bannable offense • Display of Cheats/Exploits is bannable • Forced arbitration clause and a waiver of class action and jury trial rights for all users residing in the United States and any other territory other than Australia, Switzerland, The United Kingdom, or The Territories of The European Economic Area • You can be banned for using a VPN while connecting to online servers • Cannot access game content on a Virtual PC Collected Data Types: • Identifiers / Contact Information: Name, user name, gamertag, postal and email address, phone number, unique IDs, mobile device ID, platform ID, gaming service ID, advertising ID (IDFA, Android ID) and IP address • Protected Characteristics: Age and gender • Commercial Information: Purchase and usage history and preferences, including gameplay information • Billing Information: Payment information (credit / debit card information) and shipping address • Internet / Electronic Activity: Web / app browsing and gameplay information related to the Services; information about your online interaction(s) with the Services or our advertising; and details about the games and platforms you use and other information related to installed applications • Device and Usage Data: Device type, software and hardware details, language settings, browser type and version, operating system, and information about how users use and interact with the Services (e.g., content viewed, pages visited, clicks, scrolls) • Profile Inferences: Inferences made from your information and web activity to help create a personalized profile so we can identify goods and services that may be of interest • Audio / Visual Information: Account photos, images, and avatars, audio information via chat features and functionality, and gameplay recordings and video footage (such as when you participate in playtesting) • Sensitive Information: Precise location information (if you allow the Services to collect your location), account credentials (user name and password), and contents of communications via chat features and functionality.

The lighting looks amazing but the game is really hard to run. I have a 14900k and 5080 and am using dlss performance on medium-high settings to get just above 60fps at times. The game is fun so far though, just be prepared to turn down some settings. Edit: Driver update helped a bit, maybe 10-15% better than before. Add in a heavy overclock to the 5080 and I'm closer to 85-90fps at the same settings

They've learned their lesson with Borderlands 3, fixed the issues and brought up a new game with new things to do, more freedom of movement, a massive map full of npcs to shoot at. Compared to previous borderlands this hold ups to be the best of them all (even BL2 that i have Hundreads of hours in) You can skip story on new characters after you complete the game you can shut up claptrap specifically you can spawn and edit your vehicle from anywhere you can fast travel with ease from anywhere you can replay bosses for targeted loot there is random events scattered around the map to make even the most simple travel interesting the Bl3 gunplay (best part of that game) is here and is enhanced. Fun skill trees, fun vault hunters The inventory UI is totally new with tons of filters and selections, and you can FINALLY loot as trash for easy selling (with one key press) You have a Glider and a HookShoot kinda thingy to travese the map. You have double jump and air dash for more movement on hetic combat... i could go on and on If you enjoy Borderlands 2, get it if you enjoy Borderlands 3 (with mods) get it now. Borderlands 4 is a true and fun sequel

Great game, good FPS. For all the people who cry, go work and get a good PC. Its not 2015 anymore where your d0gshit was maybe good

runs fine on my machine. What you expect from borderlands but better so far. Everyone complaining is trying to play on 1080s from NINE YEARS AGO. Upgrade y'all damn hardware, sheesh.

Looks great, runs great. I'm ready to sink another 200 hours into one of these games.

Very shocked at how well this game is running with all the speculation about optimisation 3070 / ryzen 5 3600, Game runs smooth at 60fps, medium settings at 1440p, Couldn't ask for more personally.

Loving the game, runs perfectly on RTX 2050 244FPS 4K If you are a Super Fan of the series, you gotta pick this classic up! Keep on Lootin' Vault hunter! Rock on!

mooom, the poor are at it again