Borderlands 4 Slammed for PC Performance Issues as Gearbox Releases GPU Guides

Borderlands 4, Gearbox Software’s highly anticipated looter-shooter, has stumbled out of the gate after its September 11 release, with PC players flooding review sections with complaints about optimization. Just days after launch, the game sits at a “Mixed” score on Steam with more than 16,500 reviews, as many players cite unstable performance and demanding requirements as their main frustrations.

Much of the backlash stems from Borderlands 4 performance issues on PC hardware that, until now, has been considered sufficient for modern AAA games. Even high-end setups such as NVIDIA’s RTX 3080 paired with AMD’s Ryzen 9 5900X have struggled to maintain stable framerates. Reports from players attempting to run the game on RX 6900 XT cards describe dipping below 60 FPS despite reducing visual quality to Low and enabling FSR upscaling.

The developer has responded with extensive optimization guides for both NVIDIA and AMD cards, covering 68 GPUs across 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions. The recommendations illustrate how demanding the game has become: players using anything older than an RTX 3060 Ti can expect around 30 FPS at 1080p, while 4K at 60 FPS requires at least an RTX 3090 Ti. Even those with newer cards such as the RTX 5070 Ti must rely heavily on DLSS 4’s Multi Frame Generation at high settings to maintain consistent performance.

Steam user feedback has been blunt, with one review stating:

“Terrible, terrible performance. Worst I’ve ever seen. Turned it down to Low graphics preset and couldn’t hit 60 FPS, even with FSR upscaling on my RX 6900 XT.” — Steam user "Etiko"

The situation has been aggravated by Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford’s direct responses on social media. Pitchford has dismissed some of the criticism by emphasizing the game’s ambitious scope and technical foundation.

“Borderlands 4 is a premium game made for premium gamers,” he wrote in reply to a player who expressed frustration with the game’s demands on older hardware. — Randy Pitchford

Pitchford has also suggested that some PC players need to better understand how to configure their systems, doubling down on the stance that performance issues are more a hardware problem than a development oversight.

The controversy comes despite Gearbox’s early communication that Borderlands 4 would be built using Unreal Engine 5, a technology known for pushing system resources to the limit. Steam’s hardware survey suggests that a majority of PC players are still using GPUs below the recommended tier for smooth gameplay, meaning the majority of the community is left dealing with stuttering, drops in framerate, and unresponsive performance out of the box.

Meanwhile, console players have raised separate concerns about the lack of basic features such as a field-of-view slider and motion blur toggle, both of which are considered standard accessibility options in modern shooters. Players sensitive to motion sickness have been especially vocal in asking Gearbox for updates to address these issues.

Despite its troubled PC launch, Borderlands 4 has drawn significant attention on Steam charts, reaching nearly 200,000 concurrent players in its first days according to SteamDB data. Its rating on Steam initially plummeted to “Mostly Negative” before recovering slightly to “Mixed,” with around 63% of user reviews trending positive. If that number rises above 70%, the game’s status will move to “Mostly Positive.”

Borderlands 4’s technical struggles have overshadowed its debut as one of 2025’s most anticipated releases. Whether future patches and optimizations can salvage the game’s reputation on PC remains to be seen, but Gearbox’s immediate stance suggests the studio is reluctant to take full responsibility for the launch woes. For now, early adopters are left experimenting with the recommended GPU settings in the hope of finding stability in a game marketed as the next major step in the Borderlands saga.