Borderlands 4 officially released today from 2K and Gearbox Software for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Epic, and Steam. Depending on where you live, the game actually came out yesterday at like noon, but we're just splitting hairs here.
No matter how you slice it, Borderlands 4 is officially out now and you can go and start hunting for vaults, finding tons of weapons, and shooting almost as many enemies.
The bigger headlines surrounding this release are all about the game's performance, especially on PC. As it stands, Borderlands 4 sits at a "Mixed" user score average on Steam. The main user complaints seem to focus on issues with the game crashing, poor overall performance, and stutters. The game's inclusion of Denuvo Anti-Tamper also hasn't garnered any favor among users either.
On the flip side, the average critic score currently sits at a respectable 85% (via OpenCritic). There are a couple of notable omissions from the critical reviews, however, and those include PC Gamer and Eurogamer. It seems several big outlets weren't provided a review code ahead of the game's release. This doesn't seem to be a matter of 2K holding back PC review code specifically though, as several of the day one reviews from other outlets were played on PC.
Personally speaking, my co-op pals and I played for a few hours last night and it was a mostly smooth experience. One of us is on an older laptop and obviously experienced worse performance compared to myself and another who have desktop PCs with a Ryzen 9 5900X and RTX 4080 and a Ryzen 9 5900X and RTX 5070 Ti respectively. I ran on the highest (named Badass) settings for most of the time playing, DLSS set to Balanced, and only turned on Frame Generation when I saw my framerates start to dip into the 60s just in case they decided to dip lower.
I have heard that kicking down the graphics preset from Badass to just "Very High" looks nearly identical but includes significant performance gains. I may just make that change next time I play and see if I can remove the use of Frame Generation in the process.
There were definite stutters encountered while traversing through the open environments. This was especially evident when speeding around on the hover bike vehicle. There were also periodic "shader compiling" messages that popped up when using fast travel back to locations that were already visited. These were on top of a lengthy shader per-compiling period before even getting to play the game.
Given that Borderlands 4 is built on Unreal Engine 5, I wouldn't expect to see any major miracles performed when it comes to performance gains, at least not in the near future.
Outside of performance, the relatively small amount of Borderlands 4 that I played seemed to be quite promising. The tone feels leagues better than whatever that stupid nonsense was in Borderlands 3. It feels more in line with the first Borderlands in terms of tone, which is a huge plus. The movement and gunplay are also quite nice, and includes a few improvements over the already solid feeling gameplay from Borderlands 3.
Anyway, Borderlands 4 is out now. The only place it isn't out yet is the Switch 2, which will be released on October 3, 2025.
Across the vast and seamlessly connected planet of Kairos, players will face the oppressive Timekeeper. For thousands of years, he kept the planet hidden, controlling its inhabitants with cybernetic implants called Bolts and an army of synthetic soldiers known as The Order.
Players will travel across the planet where they’ll encounter new and returning characters, creatures and inhabitants to battle, and unique factions spread across four distinct regions that seek freedom from tyranny. The friends discovered along the way will be recruited by players to their cause, while enemies will experience first-hand the arsenal of weapons and abilities wielded by the Vault Hunters.
Borderlands 4 is the boldest Borderlands to date, lovingly handcrafted by the development studio that first forged the looter-shooter genre. The title evolves the series’ gameplay and storytelling in new ways, while delivering on the quintessential Borderlands experience fans know and love, including:
Players will travel across the planet where they’ll encounter new and returning characters, creatures and inhabitants to battle, and unique factions spread across four distinct regions that seek freedom from tyranny. The friends discovered along the way will be recruited by players to their cause, while enemies will experience first-hand the arsenal of weapons and abilities wielded by the Vault Hunters.
Borderlands 4 is the boldest Borderlands to date, lovingly handcrafted by the development studio that first forged the looter-shooter genre. The title evolves the series’ gameplay and storytelling in new ways, while delivering on the quintessential Borderlands experience fans know and love, including:
- Intense action, badass Vault Hunters, and billions of wild and deadly weapons on an all-new planet ruled by a ruthless tyrant;
- The deepest and most diverse Vault Hunter skill trees of any Borderlands title yet, giving players an unprecedented level of expression through their builds. Paired with the most expansive loot chase yet, players will have all the tools they need to seek out and perfect the build that best matches their style;
- Players can seamlessly travel between zones and become immersed in a more dynamic world, featuring events and discoverable side missions that encourage and reward exploration;
- New traversal mechanics add to the exploration for loot and add new dimensions to combat. A Digirunner vehicle that can be summoned almost anywhere will have players racing across the beautiful vistas of Kairos in style;
- Fight solo or in co-op with up to four players in this immense sci-fi adventure, packed with free-form combat and exploration, pulse-pounding boss fights, infinitely varied loot drops, and an eclectic cast of unforgettable characters new and old.
