Borderlands 4 system requirements come in higher than expected, but they're fair

The Borderlands 4 system requirements have been revealed, and they're a lot more demanding than we expected. Despite this, there appears to be no upscaling used to meet the requirements, which is a big positive compared to the likes of FBC Firebreak and Hell is Us.

You aren't going to need the best gaming PC to run Borderlands 4, let's make that clear nice and early. However, the specs start a little higher than a lot of other modern 3D games, meaning some upgrades could be required if you're going to want to play at 4K with a solid 60fps frame rate.

Here are the Borderlands 4 system requirements:

At first glance, the Borderlands 4 system requirements appear high, but still sit below the likes of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle or Doom The Dark Ages. We also don't yet have any high or ultra specs, which could reveal more about how well the game is optimized.

The fact that you'll need an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 or AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT confirms that no form of ray tracing is set to be forced, as it's unsupported by the latter GPU. Performance targets are also absent, but we assume that these specs will net you 30fps at 1080p on the lowest graphical preset.

When looking at the recommended specs, the GPU demands jump up to the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 and AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT. While no performance target is listed again, we'd estimate that these specs are for playing at 1440p with 60fps on the high graphical preset. What's interesting here is that the requirements say that you need at least 12GB of VRAM, but the standard RTX 3080 only has 10GB, meaning it looks like you'll need a (rarer) RTX 3080 12GB card to run this game.

The iconic art style of Borderlands is set to return, and while it doesn't use true cel shading, it shares many similarities with the art style that sacrifices realism in the name of a more cartoonish appearance.

One common misconception is that Borderlands' art style should make it easier to run on PC. However, there is actually very little evidence to back this up, and Gearbox has stated its graphical style still uses traditional lighting techniques on heavily stylized 3D models and textures.

When it comes to your processor, you'll need an eight-core CPU to meet both the system requirements tiers, but a newer, faster model will be needed for the recommended settings.

On the RAM front, you'll need at least 16GB even if you're aiming for the minimum specs, meaning it's a good time to upgrade to some of the best gaming RAM that is compatible with your existing build if you're still using 8GB.

Finally, as stated in the notes section of the Borderlands 4 system requirements, you'll need an SSD onto which you can install the 100GB game file, with no exceptions given, even to the minimum requirements. If you don't already have the best SSD for your gaming PC, buying one will see your game load times reduce substantially compared to using a hard drive, while also making your PC feel much more responsive in use.

Take our Borderlands 4 system requirements PC benchmark test to answer the question… Can I run Borderlands 4?

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