Borderlands 4 hit the market promising to deliver an explosive experience for looter shooter fans, but the release didn't go as many expected. On console versions, particularly PS5 and Xbox Series X, players faced performance issues that intensified after a few hours of play, turning the fun into frustration.
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Despite offering distinct graphics modes to balance quality and performance, the title suffers a noticeable decline in stability over time. Gearbox itself acknowledged the situation and offered a temporary solution that reignited the debate over the game's true optimization.
Performance drop on consoles worries gamers
Borderlands 4 offers two graphics options on consoles: Performance mode, with 60 FPS and reduced visual adjustments, and Quality mode, capped at 30 FPS but with higher resolution. Initially, this option seems satisfactory, but reports indicate that after a few hours the game loses fluidity, even crashing in some cases.
This instability surprised players, as the promise of an optimized experience was made from launch. Discussions on forums like Reddit reveal that the issue isn't restricted to a specific console, but rather affects different versions, particularly the PS5 Pro, which was supposed to deliver the most robust performance.
Restarting the console is the temporary solution
Gearbox has confirmed that the issue is real and related to prolonged gameplay sessions. According to Randy Pitchford, the studio's CEO, the workaround for now is to end the game and restart the console. This temporary solution resolves the issue, but it's causing dissatisfaction among players, who consider it unacceptable to have to interrupt their experience in 2025 to maintain the stability of a highly anticipated release.
Suspected memory leak and expected update
Experts and players speculate that the issues may be linked to a potential memory leak, as performance progressively degrades over time. Gearbox has not yet confirmed the exact source of the error, but the community hopes that future updates will definitively fix the issue.
Meanwhile, the makeshift solution of restarting the console remains the only viable alternative. This scenario reignites debates about the quality of optimizations in major releases and the pressure for patches so soon after their release.
