Borderlands 4 developer says fixing PC performance is the studio's 'top priority'

Borderlands 4 has been one of the biggest releases of the year, but its PC debut has been met with mixed reviews at best. When it comes to the core gameplay experience and the 'looter shooter' action of the series, the game has been widely praised for being a return to form and a modern extension of the iconic Borderlands 2. When it comes to performance, well, that's a different story.

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Ahead of the game's launch, everything from the high 'recommended' PC system requirements to NVIDIA's DLSS 4 benchmarks painted the picture of another heavy Unreal Engine 5-powered release. However, once the game launched and several reports of poor performance and stuttering emerged, Borderlands 4 development studio Gearbox Software boss Randy Pitchford began responding to criticism (and that's putting it mildly) by stating that the PC version was already in an 'optimal' state.

He went on to add that GeForce RTX owners should enable DLSS and Frame Generation in the game to ensure a smoother experience. Our own in-depth analysis of the game's performance is set to go live soon, and we conclude that, in its current state, it's essentially the first AAA PC game that requires upscaling and frame generation. But, there's good news.

Gearbox has posted a note to the game's official social media account stating that even with millions of players, it's "reading every piece of feedback you share," and listed some of the things the studio is taking action on.

"We know some PC players are running into bugs and crashes. We hear you. Updates to improve stability and performance already started rolling out over the weekend and another is coming this Thursday. This is our top priority."

That last bit was intentionally bolded by Gearbox, confirming that the studio is aware of the game's stability issues (stuttering and frame drops) and overall performance on PC, and it's a top priority for the studio to improve. How much improvement remains to be seen, but the odds are that Borderlands 4 will be one of those fluid PC releases, where performance across a wide range of hardware improves in the weeks and months ahead. In the same post, it also confirms that a Field of View (FOV) slider is coming to the console (PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and hopefully Nintendo Switch 2), which is good news for couch gamers.