I tested Borderlands 4 on an RTX 4070, and sorry Randy, but it runs really badly

While it's now far from uncommon for a game to struggle with performance issues at launch, Borderlands 4 finds itself in a unique position. This is because, rather than developer Gearbox committing to just fixing the reported issues, its CEO, Randy Pitchford, is busy making bold claims about gamers and PC hardware on social media, while also using customer service data to deny that the issue is widespread.

Well, I finally had the chance to give Borderlands 4 a go on PC using our RTX 4070 testing rig, which we use to benchmark all the latest releases, and my experience was far from positive. Taking Randy's claims about gamers expecting to run super high graphics on low-spec PCs into consideration, I only ran the game on the medium graphics preset, while presenting my data and general experience. Our rig may not use the best graphics card or CPU, but it's still a very capable gaming PC, often running the latest releases at the high preset with decent frame rates at 1080p and 1440p.

My time testing Borderlands 4 got off to the worst possible start, with the shader compilation taking 15 minutes and 35 seconds, followed by an endless wait for the game to log in. Turns out, I'd already hit my first problem. I verified the game files, allowed the game through my firewall, and ran the game as an administrator, but nothing got me past this endless "Logging in" screen.

By this point, I'm already well over half an hour into trying to play Borderlands 4 and can't even get to the main menu, which is far from ideal. As a parent of a 10-year-old and a 10-month-old, my gaming time is already short, so sitting around dealing with dodgy menus and overly long shader compilation was extremely frustrating. The fix for this issue was seemingly to restart my entire PC, which finally got me past the dreaded login screen.

After making sure the game was set to the medium graphics preset with Nvidia DLSS set to Quality, I began playing Borderlands 4. During the initial gameplay section, up to the first boss fight, performance was okay, but there were frequent frame rate drops when entering combat and throughout firefights. The more I tried to use Borderland's movement mechanics to my advantage, the worse the performance drop.

Testing the Warden Scathe boss across three resolutions, my average frame rate was 72fps at 1080p, 61fps at 1440p, and 46fps at 4K. This fight was the easiest section within the opening portion of Borderlands 4 to repeat, allowing me to fairly test each resolution. The 1% lows at each resolution were 52fps, 37fps, and 25fps, respectively. There was noticeable stuttering at each resolution, reflected in the generally low 1% lows, which I'll touch on again shortly.

According to the Borderlands 4 system requirements, our test rig falls shy of meeting the recommended specs for playing at 1440p with 60fps, but even so, you'd expect a two-year-old $599 Nvidia GPU paired with an 11th-gen Intel CPU to handle these settings, even if they aren't officially listed in the requirements.

Performance, however, only got worse when making it to the open-world portion of the game. As soon as I was done with the tour of Claptrap's camp and I was free to roam, the performance dropped dramatically, and the stuttering got much worse.

The average frame rates dropped to 62fps at 1080p, 53fps at 1440p, and just 23fps at 4K. The 1% lows also suffered, dropping to 37fps, 26fps, and 14fps, respectively. Spin it however you like, Randy, but Borderlands should not be dropping to 37fps at 1080p on an RTX 4070 with medium graphics settings.

Without DLSS, the averages drop to 56fps, 50fps, and 20fps while the 1% lows drop to 32fps, 23fps, and 14fps. With or without upscaling, these numbers are dire, particularly the 1% lows. At both 1440p, this figure is  unacceptable, showing just how frequently the game is struggling. For context, when testing a single-player shooter, we typically set the bar as a 60fps average and 45fps 1% low.

Instead, we have a 1% low that's well under 30fps, let alone 45fps, indicating that there are frequent moments where the game is struggling to handle whatever is happening on screen.

Even just navigating the open world, actively trying to avoid combat, I would notice big texture pop-ins, objects disappearing from the game world, and issues with lighting, such as constant flickering. So many areas of Borderlands 4 scream poor optimization, and the response so far comes across as a scramble to avoid blame.

Despite the issues I've encountered, I don't believe Borderlands 4 is far off from being a great game in terms of performance. A few patches or hotfixes focused on performance are needed, but the sooner these are made available, the sooner I can get back to the game.

In its current state, however, the game is borderline unplayable, especially when engaging in combat, which is a fundamental part of the game. For now, I would rather spend my time playing properly optimized games without the performance frustrations.

Are you struggling with performance in Borderlands 4, or does the game run just fine for you? Let us know over in our community Discord server.