- Borderlands 4 recently launched to over 200,000 concurrent players on Steam.
- Despite the strong numbers, the game suffers from severe performance issues, with fans dubbing it Stutterlands and Crashlands.
- It performs especially poorly on the Steam Deck, dropping to as low as 8 FPS, even on the lowest settings with upscaling enabled.
Before release, many reports revealed that the performance of Borderlands 4 was poor, causing major concern among the fandom, as it also crashed during a promo.
Fans were genuinely worried because not only is it a UE5 game, but it also includes Denuvo DRM and Symbiote, all of which make the performance even worse.
That said, the CEO confirmed that the day-one patch would fix many issues, but it didn’t do much. The game is now flooded with negative reviews on Steam, mainly due to severe performance problems. It is also almost unplayable on the Steam Deck.
Why it matters: It’s becoming common for UE5 games to perform poorly at launch, but this mostly happens because of developer laziness.
The game was released to mostly negative reviews on Steam, though that rating has since shifted to mixed, with over 40% of reviews still being negative.
Most of the criticism revolves around poor performance, something many had warned about before launch, expecting it to be another technical mess.
Terrible optimization. Another Unreal Engine 5 casualty. Not worth buying in its current state unless you have a NASA PC.
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.
Despite the severe performance issues, even on high-end hardware, the launch was commercially successful. Borderlands 4 reached over 200,000 concurrent players at launch, and that number is expected to climb over the weekend.
It’s also worth noting that the game is nearly unplayable on the Steam Deck. Several users who tried running it on the handheld device refunded it immediately due to the poor experience.
On the Steam Deck, the game typically runs at around 22 FPS, but it frequently drops to as low as 8–9 FPS, making the experience borderline unplayable. This was tested by SteamDeckHQ using the lowest settings possible, along with the best available upscaling option.
What are your thoughts on Borderlands 4 having these issues at launch? Let us know in the comments below, or join the official Tech4Gamers forums to join the discussion.
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[News Editor]
Obaid is pursuing a Law degree while working as a content writer. He has worked as a gaming writer for over three years because of his passion for the medium and reporting the latest updates in the industry. Having played hundreds of games, Obaid finds himself coming back to Elden Ring, Cyberpunk 2077, and Red Dead Redemption 2, with these games being among his favorites. He has also been mentioned on highly regarded websites, such as Wccftech, Metro UK, PS Lifestyle, GamePressure, VGC, and Gamespot.
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