One of September's biggest game launches has been the arrival of Borderlands 4 — Gearbox Software's long-awaited co-op looter shooter, and the first new mainline entry in the franchise since 2019's Borderlands 3. It released on September 12 to positive reviews from critics, and quickly attracted a very large player base across Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PS5.
But while the title has received high praise for the quality of its gameplay, story, and presentation, something it's gotten quite a bit of criticism for is its performance, along with the absence of some key features on console like a field-of-view (FOV) slider and a toggle for motion blur. As a result, the game fell to a "Mixed" rating at launch, and hasn't risen above it since.
In the past couple weeks, Gearbox has put out a few patches for the PC version of the game to improve its stability, though players on Xbox and PS5 have still been waiting. On Thursday morning, though, another new update was released for both PC and console.
The patch is available to download now across all of Borderlands 4's platforms, and is the biggest one the developers have published since release. And in addition to implementing more fixes for performance and some notable gameplay tweaks, it's also brought an FOV slider to the console versions of the FPS.
The addition of an FOV slider is definitely the highlight of the update, as the default view on Xbox and PS5 was so narrow that it was giving players headaches and motion sickness. I was expecting the feature to take Gearbox longer to develop and implement on consoles, so the fact it's here now is a pleasant surprise.
It's unfortunate a motion blur toggle hasn't come as well since that visual effect is also known to occasionally cause similar sensations, but hopefully one does in the future.
Notably, Gearbox has also made "improvements to stability and performance," and has "addressed various instances of hitching, low FPS, and crashes" as well. The studio also says it's continuing to look into reports of issues and will further refine and polish Borderlands 4's technical state moving forward.
The addition of an FOV slider is definitely the highlight of the update, as the default view on Xbox and PS5 was so narrow that it was giving players headaches and motion sickness. I was expecting the feature to take Gearbox longer to develop and implement on consoles, so the fact it's here now is a pleasant surprise.
Ironically, some users have experienced worse performance after the patch, which the developer says it's aware of. Issues with stutters specifically should improve as Borderlands 4's shaders compile in the background during gameplay, with Gearbox recommending a clearing of your shader cache if they persist beyond 15 minutes.
Some nice Vault Hunter buffs were also made with this patch, including a tweak that stops Harlowe's Flux Generator from healing enemies when you take the Potential Transference skill and a change to the Accretion passive that gives your allies lifesteal. Amon's Primal Surge also now restores shield and ammo as intended, his Onslaughter Rocket Punch connects more consistently with shielded foes, and his Forgeaxe tracks nearby enemies properly.
These adjustments come shortly after Borderlands 4 committed to making buffs before nerfs, exciting many in the community who were worried that Gearbox would be nerf-heavy as they were soon after the launch of Borderlands 3 and the 2022 spinoff Tiny Tina's Wonderlands.
To be clear, nerfs are coming — the critical damage you can do with Vex's knife and her Bloodletting skill can skyrocket into the millions — but Gearbox is focusing on improving underwhelming parts of the sandbox before it tones anything down.
Overall, this is quite a substantial update for Borderlands 4, complete with the speedy addition of an FOV slider and some sweet gameplay buffs. It's great to see some performance fixes come to console as well as PC, too, given that Xbox and PS5 players have been stuck waiting since launch for some help on that front. You can read the full patch notes here.
It also happens to coincide with the reset of the game's weekly endgame content offerings, including the Weekly Big Encore Boss, the Weekly Wildcard Mission, and the Maurice’s Black Market Vending Machine.
The former two can be farmed for plenty of high-quality loot, and the latter's powerful, but randomized offerings encourage trading with other players. Keep an eye on community spaces like the Borderlands subreddit for info on which bosses, missions, and vending machine locations are active every week.
Borderlands 4 itself is available for $69.99 on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PS5, with a Nintendo Switch 2 release coming at some point in the future (it was delayed indefinitely). Thanks to an awesome deal, though, you can get it for about $13 off; right now, it's selling for $57.09 at Loaded (formerly CDKeys).
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