It's been just over a week since Gearbox Software's long-awaited PvE looter shooter Borderlands 4 dropped on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PS5, and it's been an interesting launch period to say the least of things. While the core gameplay, story, and presentation of the title have been met with near-unanimous praise, its performance on both PC and consoles has been widely criticized for numerous and severe issues.
The problem was severe enough to send Borderlands 4 falling to a 'Mixed' review score on Steam at launch, and while the number of positive reviews has increased steadily since then, the game's rating hasn't changed. It hasn't exactly helped that Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford took to social media to argue against player reports, either.
Gearbox released one large update the day after Borderlands 4's September 12 launch "to help improve stability for a wide range of PCs," though at best, it seems that it was only moderately effective at doing so, as tons of fans still report major issues with crashes, framerate drops, and more.
Now, a second update has come to the game on Thursday that addresses a variety of its known crashing issues, along with a small handful of progression mishaps and a bug that was causing the Gilded Glory Pack — weapons from Borderlands 4's preorder bonus — to appear in regular chests.
As the patch notes show, the update specifically "addressed crashes tied to animation states, audio, and collision checks," while also fixing "various GPU-related crashes." The developers also took care of a bug that stopped the Reward Center from working after you claimed Gilded Glory Pack; the rest of the fixes were minor, in comparison.
Big Encore Bosses, Weekly Wildcard Missions, and Black Market Vending Machine locations will all change weekly, giving Borderlands 4 players a number of different reasons to consistently log into the game and see what's new.
Notably, the new patch has also kicked off several types of recurring weekly updates in Borderlands 4's endgame. The first is a Weekly Big Encore Boss, which is a more difficult version of an existing boss that features "an even more rewarding loot pool."
Secondly, there are Weekly Wildcard Missions. These special quests spice up their objectives with "challenging new traits," and can be farmed infinitely to try and get a perfect roll of the Legendary piece of gear they're guaranteed to drop.
There's also Maurice’s Black Market Vending Machine, a special vending machine that offers special high-quality loot you can buy (think Destiny 2's Xur). Gearbox says that its location will be the same for everyone each week, but that the loot each player sees is different; therefore, you should communicate what you have available in yours and see if you can't make a beneficial trade with someone who has something desirable in theirs.
Big Encore Bosses, Weekly Wildcard Missions, and Black Market Vending Machine locations will all change weekly, giving Borderlands 4 players a number of different reasons to consistently log into the game and see what's new.
Further improvements to Borderlands 4's PC performance are great, though crashes are far from the only issue that fans are running into, and additional patches that address framerate drops, stutters, glitched textures, and more are still needed. The game's user interface (UI) has also been widely disliked due to how messy it looks, so hopefully, it gets some improvements soon, too.
It's also important to note that Borderlands 4 hasn't gotten an update yet on Xbox Series X|S and PS5 consoles at all, so the major stability problems that version of the game has are still as prevalent right now as they were at launch last week.
In the new PC patch notes, it was noted that one of the minor bugfixes "will be fixed on consoles in the coming days," so hopefully that means a sizable update for Xbox and PS5 is on the way. An FOV slider coming sooner rather than later would be great, too, as the current lack of one is a major issue.
It's also important to note that Borderlands 4 hasn't gotten an update yet on Xbox Series X|S and PS5 consoles at all, so the major stability problems that version of the game has are still as prevalent right now as they were at launch last week.
Aside from Borderlands 4's numerous performance woes, the game has been received quite well by critics and fans alike, with a review roundup earning it an "Generally Favorable" 83/100 on Metacritic. In our own review, my colleague Michael Hoglund awarded it a 4/5 stars, calling it "the best Borderlands game" he's ever played.
Still, I'm personally holding off on playing until the game gets patched into a more stable state. If you want to jump in now, though, you can get Borderlands 4 on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, or PS5 for $69.99. Notably, thanks to a deal, you can get the PC version for only $60.69 at Loaded (formerly CDKeys).
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