Borderlands 4 is out now on PC by way of Steam and the Epic Retailer. And the looter shooter sequel is already the largest Borderlands launch on Steam, with over 200,000 concurrent gamers just some hours after its launch. However opinions on Steam aren’t nice, as many gamers are struggling to even play the co-op FPS.
On September 11, Borderlands 4 launched on PC. The long-awaited sequel to Gearbox’s Borderlands 3 is a much bigger, higher, and wilder expertise than the earlier sport, that includes a number of good modifications and additions to the basic looting-shooting formulation. Nonetheless, that’s solely the case in case you can really play the sport and luxuriate in it. And on PC, gamers are reporting numerous efficiency points, even on {hardware} that Gearbox listed as assembly the wanted specs.
As of 4:30 pm EST on Steam, Borderlands 4 has about 2,000 opinions which are completely divided between unfavourable and constructive, giving the sport a 50 p.c blended standing. That’s no good! Scrolling by means of opinions, the largest complaints appear to be not in regards to the content material of the sport, however about how poorly it performs on numerous {hardware} setups. Gamers are additionally complaining about stuttering and hitching, or being pressured to make use of DLSS to play the sport at a secure framerate. Others can’t even boot the sport up, reporting crashes earlier than they even get into the motion.
After all, there are additionally loads of opinions from individuals saying they’d no points in any respect and claiming that folks complaining must improve their PCs. That is the web, so after all it devolved right into a struggle with numerous sides and factions.
Within the opinions on Steam, the preferred culprits persons are blaming for the unhealthy efficiency embody Unreal Engine 5 and DRM safety software program Denuvo. During the last yr or so, Unreal Engine 5 has change into a goal on-line as gamers consider the engine isn’t well-suited to large video games and is tough to optimize. The complaints have gotten so loud on-line that Epic CEO Tim Sweeney even stepped in not too long ago to defend the engine and lay the blame on devs who aren’t targeted on optimization early sufficient within the cycle.
My expertise enjoying Borderlands 4 on PC
I’ve been enjoying Borderlands 4 on PC for the final week, and my expertise has been up and down. Once I first received the sport, I used to be enjoying on an RTX 3070 and struggled to run it at 1080p at 60FPS. I upgraded my rig to an RTX 5070 (one thing I had been planning on doing for a couple of months now), and Borderlands 4 ran significantly better. Nonetheless, I nonetheless discovered that I wanted to run the sport with DLSS on and body gen to achieve 120 FPS at 1080 with some settings kicked right down to medium. Contemplating the specs within the machine, I used to be shocked by how energy hungry the sport is, and I’ll admit that I proceed to be dissatisfied with Unreal Engine 5 video games.
That mentioned, ever since I discovered some settings that labored and downloaded the most recent drivers, which weren’t obtainable after I first received entry to the sport, I’ve been having a good time enjoying the sport on PC. It largely locks to 120 with my present settings and setup, and it feels nice. I also needs to level out, although, that there’s been some chatter indicating that the day-one patch for the sport, which arrived shortly earlier than launch, might have induced issues that weren’t current when critics and content material creators had been enjoying it pre-release. In my fast checks, I’ve discovered the newest patch, the one persons are enjoying with on Steam proper now, appears to convey with it some points that weren’t current earlier than the day-one patch. However I must play extra to actually see if issues are damaged.
I hope Gearbox points a patch on PC quickly to assist enhance issues a bit. Or on the very least, do away with Denuvo ASAP.
