Gearbox CEO Warns Borderlands 4 Could Struggle on Older Hardware

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Game May Be Unplayable On Below Min-Spec Machines!

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  • Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford recently took to social media to address the Borderlands 4 performance issue.
  • He warned that low-spec PCs might not be able to deliver great results in the game.
  • Early testing shows that not even the RTX 5080 can output a stable 60FPS with DLSS enabled.

While Gearbox Studios has high expectations for Borderlands 4, things aren’t looking great for the developer since its goal to sell 6 million units at launch may not be achievable. The reason why that is so is that Borderlands 4 seems to be a technical mess.

Almost all early previews have pointed to the game’s bad performance. In reply to that, the Gearbox CEO clearly stated that older hardware may not provide buttery smooth performance for the latest-gen AAA games.

Why it matters: Modern AAA games are devoid of optimisation, and it’s the biggest aspect that studios continue to neglect. For $70, one would think that they’d get a polished release, but that’s no longer the case these days.

borderlands 4 performance
Randy Pitchford Addressing Borderlands 4 Performance Concerns || Social Media

In a discussion regarding Borderlands 4 performance, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford weighed in on the discussion with a surprisingly long comment. The boss said that ‘expectation for using a below min-spec machine should be that the game is unplayable.’

He further stated that older hardware may not provide buttery smooth performance for the latest-gen AAA games. Pitchford’s comment seems rather valid, but the person he was replying to was running an RTX 3070, i7-12700K, and 16GB RAM.

Still, the game struggled to output 60FPS even on a measly 1080p resolution with a low preset. Moreover, the game was also occasionally stuttering, freezing, and hitching.

The expectation for using a below min-spec machine should be that the game is unplayable.

Just for reference, the minimum requirements for Borderlands 4 are an RTX 2070, an i7-9700, and 16GB RAM.

borderlands 4 protagonists
Borderlands 4 System Requirements Too High For 50% Of Steam Users

There’s a day one patch ready for the title, and even if it does ‘a lot’, Pitchford’s entire answer suggests that it won’t be a transformative update to increase performance magically.

Previously, it was reported that even the RTX 5080 struggled to output 60FPS with Borderlands 4 with DLSS enabled. Switch 2 performance is also subpar, and for a game like Borderlands 4, expect it to be near-unplayable on the handheld.

Are you excited for Borderlands 4 when it comes out on 12 September? Let us know in the comments below, or at the official Tech4Gamers Forums.

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