Borderlands 4 performance patch out now with PC 'our top priority'

Borderlands 4 Twitch Drops: The Watch, Drop, and Roll Echo-4 drone skin waving, surrounded by shattered glass that forms a frame around the image.

(Image credit: Gearbox)

Gearbox has announced a Borderlands 4 patch out now that takes particular aim at the game's rather chaotic PC performance issues. This follows a weekend patch that didn't seem to do anything to improve things, players jury-rigging various solutions to stop the stuttering, and Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford wading into any and all arguments he can find.

Borderlands 4 is currently sitting at a "Mixed" rating on Steam, and a quick glance shows that nearly every negative review is about performance issues (with some adding "don't blame the consumer" for Pitchford's benefit). PCG's Nick Evanson notes that "every major Borderlands game has run like a bag of frogs juggling bowling balls on release" and this time is no exception.

"We're reading every piece of feedback you share," says the Gearbox statement, which makes you feel a little bad for the poor staffer charged with that duty. "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 [today]. This is our top priority."

It adds that a FOV slider option is coming for consoles, and references the Break Free pack of goodies released for all players. The patch notes read:

Stability

Addressed crashes tied to animation states, audio, and collision checks
Addressed various GPU-related crashes

Gameplay & Progression

Resolved an issue where the Reward Center could stop working after claiming the Gilded Glory Pack rewards
Addressed a progression blocker in the mission “Talk to Zadra,” where the objective could fail if players exited and relaunched mid-dialogue
Corrected “Doesn’t own DLC” warnings incorrectly showing up on non-DLC gear

Loot & Items

Updated loot pools so Gilded Glory Pack guns no longer appear in standard chests

Borderlands 4 Hellwalker location: An upper-body shot of Amon gritting his teeth and smiling while holding two large axes, one fire and the other ice. — (Image credit: Gearbox)

One more note for PC players: "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."

The patch has just gone live, and we'll be testing it out at PCG towers. Probably the most unhelpful thing for Gearbox right now is its own boss. Randy Pitchford is one of those chronically online types, and swiftly moved from challenging players to break the servers onto saying Borderlands 4 is "a premium game for premium gamers" and suggesting problems were probably down to low spec hardware. He wasn't done there though, and blithely insisted the internet was overblowing things as the user reviews tanked.

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Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."

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