Borderlands 4 update delivers Vault Hunter and weapon buffs, but more is coming

A new Borderlands 4 update today delivers some welcome buffs across Gearbox's latest looter shooter. Sixteen years since it began (oh no, I'm old), the latest incarnation of the fabled Vault-hunting adventure is back, and it's one of the best co-op games of the year. But PC performance problems continue to cause concerns for many, and the developer is working on buffing out some of its rough edges. Alongside this, these Borderlands 4 patch notes roll out a range of character and weapon buffs, bug fixes, and even some menu improvements.

The new Borderlands 4 update kicks off with some more stability and performance tweaks. Underwhelming frame rates and drops during big action scenes are one of the only big negatives on an experience I'd rank among the best FPS games of the past few years. Gearbox notes that, because of these changes, you may notice some reduced stability at first as shaders re-bake, but that this should resolve after around 15 minutes of play. It also tackles some low fps and crash issues, as well as "rare instances of infinite loading screens" when using Borderlands 4 crossplay.

In weapon balance news, all Tediore weapons have been buffed with 10% more damage and 10% increased magazine size, which should also impact the effectiveness of their reload attacks. The Hellwalker legendary shotgun will now always spawn with the fire element, legendary pistol Lucky Clover's fire rate has been boosted, and the damage on the Fisheye legendary sniper has gone up. Queen's Rest pistols using the Daedalus Ammoswitcher underbarrel have been fixed, and will use the appropriate projectiles.

All four playable Borderlands 4 characters get some buffs, although most come in the form of fixes to broken skills. Yet that's not all; creative director Graeme Timmins notes that the team "had too many Vault Hunter buffs to safely fit into today's big update," so instead you can expect more substantial changes to roll out in an update targeted for "early next week."

For Vex, her Spirit Bomb passive now properly acts as companion damage, and will alter color to show its current element. Harlowe's Flux Generator no longer mistakenly heals enemies if you're using Potential Transference, her Accretion passive will grant lifesteal to allies, and fixes have been deployed for several interaction issues between the Chroma Accelerator's projectile and a range of other skill augments, passives, and capstones.

Amon's Onslaughter Rocket Punch has been made more reliable at hitting, especially against shielded enemies, which is great news for me as it's the build I'm currently running and the most fun loadout I've experienced so far. His Primal Surge passive should now correctly restore shield and ammo when applying status effects to enemies, and his Forgeaxes will seek enemies more accurately. Last but not least, Rafa's Blowout passive will properly stack when repeating action skills.

Elsewhere, NPC and enemy pathing has been improved with fewer instances of characters getting stuck. Broken gear thumbnails have been resolved, inventory dropdown menus should no longer accidentally make unintended selections. The compass and custom waypoints get "various improvements," some UI visuals have been tweaked "for alignment, consistency, and clarity," and you can no longer teleport into Zadra's Rest before you've unlocked it (this one caused me some real confusion).

Last but not least, the regular weekly rotation has rolled out. That means a new Big Encore boss, another weekly wildcard mission, and a new position for Maurice's Black Market vending machine. This time, it's moved to Carcadia Burn, at the peak of a cliff in Grindstone of the Worthy. If you've got the Rustical Hurl silo unlocked, you'll find Maurice at the top-right of the ridge to its north.

This latest Borderlands 4 update is live now. You can read through the full changelog courtesy of Gearbox for an in-depth list of tweaks and bug fixes.

Have you checked the latest Borderlands 4 Shift codes? Don't miss your chance to snag Golden Keys and other goodies. We're also continuing to update our best Borderlands 4 settings to optimize PC performance for your rig.

Now that we've had some more time to dig in, are you enjoying BL4 so far? Drop by the PCGamesN community Discord server and tell me what build you're running and what balance changes you'd like to see roll out in the next update.