It's been a long wait for Borderlands 4 — the last mainline Borderlands game came out six years ago in 2019, after all — but thankfully, it's finally over, and players across Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PS5 can officially jump into Gearbox Software's latest chaotic co-op looter shooter now (with Switch 2 getting a port on October 3).
The game's slightly early launch on PC was met with a "Mixed" reception on Steam, with players lambasting various performance issues that are severely affecting the experience for many on that platform. Console players went into the full September 12 release date hoping they'd have a better time, and overall, it does seem like the Xbox and PS5 versions are more stable.
However, that doesn't mean that they don't have a few major problems of their own — and so far, the biggest of these is the absence of two widely offered visual settings: a field-of-view (FOV) slider and a toggle for motion blur, a graphical effect that blurs characters and objects when they're moving, mimicking how we see movement in real life.
Complaints about these features missing are amongst some of the top posts in the Borderlands subreddit right now, with fans strongly criticizing the lack of an FOV slider in particular, since Borderlands 4's console FOV is a pitiful 70. That's an extremely low value that results in an incredibly narrow and zoomed-in view; most players consider 90-100 to be the sweet spot, and many like to push their FOV even higher.
"It’s kinda brutal, not gonna lie. The FOV is so zoomed in, making it hard to enjoy the game and giving me motion sickness," reads one popular post. "So many console games have FOV sliders. I really hope they add it in, it should be a standard feature by now."
"FOV slider for console needs to happen asap. It’s way too low and VERY motion sickness inducing," says the title of another. "This has been my most anticipated game since it was basically revealed, and now I can’t even play it. Managed to play an hour before motion sickness hit too hard," wrote its author. "This is just absurdly low, and also no option to turn off motion blur is also absolutely insane."
Given how wildly chaotic the moment-to-moment gameplay of Borderlands tends to get, it's understandable that experiencing all those rapid reloads and zippy movements through such a tapered and zoomed viewing angle would make some players motion sick.
Given how wildly chaotic the moment-to-moment gameplay of Borderlands tends to get, it's understandable that experiencing all those rapid reloads and zippy movements through such a tapered and zoomed viewing angle would make some players motion sick.
Motion blur has also been known to cause motion sickness as well, so the fact both it and the FOV can't be toggled or adjusted on Xbox or PS5 is a major issue that the developers need to address.
Notably, both of these settings are available in the PC version of the game, which is something that console players are understandably irked about. Hopefully, though, that means that it won't be too difficult for Gearbox to implement them in the console editions as well in a future update.
It's a shame that players are running into technical issues on both PC and console while trying to enjoy Borderlands 4, as beyond performance woes and missing critical features, it looks to be a fantastic game with much of what the franchise's community has asked for since Borderlands 3. With any luck, then, we'll see all of the aforementioned problems sooner rather than later.
Compared to previous entries, Borderlands 4 has been praised for its highly refined movement and gunplay, the powerful and varied skills of its new Vault Hunters that promote creative and experimental buildcrafting, its seamless open-world structure that does away with loading screens, and a story campaign that strikes the perfect balance of the series' trademark humor and its more serious character-driven narrative beats.
It's a shame that players are running into technical issues on both PC and console while trying to enjoy Borderlands 4, as beyond performance woes and missing critical features, it looks to be a fantastic game with much of what the franchise's community has asked for since Borderlands 3.
A roundup of critic reviews shows that that game has been received very well across the industry, with the co-op FPS achieving a "Generally Favorable" 84/100 Metacritic score based on nearly 70 reviews posted across the web.
In our own review, my colleague Michael Hoglund awarded Borderlands 4 a 4/5-star rating, asserting that it "delivers the ultimate Vault Hunter experience, a dazzling gem where every system from gunplay to movement to loot shines with obsessive care."
If you're ready to check it out for yourself, Borderlands 4 can be purchased on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC (Steam), and PS5 for $69.99. The PC version is actually nearly $10 off thanks to a discount that brings it down to $60.69 at Loaded (formerly CDKeys), though, so if you have a system that meets its beefy PC system requirements, you can go with that edition to save some money.
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