Borderlands 4 Review: The Guns Still Slap, the Performance Doesn't

Borderlands 4 has been out for about a year now, and Gearbox's latest mayhem-fueled looter shooter is currently sitting at 50% off on Steam. Digging through what recent players are actually saying, the picture matches the "Mixed" tag on its store page pretty closely: a genuinely fun, chaotic loot-shooter loop that's still being undercut by real technical problems Gearbox hasn't fully stamped out.

Pros

• The gunplay is still the main draw, and recent reviews keep coming back to how satisfying it feels to unload billions of increasingly absurd weapons, especially with friends
• Real staying power: plenty of recent reviewers have clocked 100, 200, even 370+ hours, which says more than any marketing copy could
• Quality-of-life changes over previous Borderlands entries are noticed and appreciated by returning fans
• Co-op meaningfully softens the difficulty curve, turning rough boss fights into manageable (and funnier) ones
• Multiple players note the game has visibly improved since launch thanks to ongoing patches

Cons

• Optimization is the single most repeated complaint: stuttering and low frame rates show up even on solid mid-range and high-end rigs, with some players struggling to hold 30fps on low settings
• Shader cache rebuilds are a genuine sore point, with some reports of waits stretching up to 90 minutes, particularly rough for Linux users
• Post-patch stability issues, including new or worsened crashing, keep cropping up and eroding goodwill after updates
• The Vault Card progression system feels underwhelming relative to the grind it asks for
• A few longtime fans feel the writing and character personality don't quite reach Borderlands 2's highs, and some mid-game difficulty spikes feel more frustrating than fair
• Small but frequently mentioned annoyance: no minimap

Summary

Borderlands 4 is a case of a great core loop wrapped in a rockier technical package than it should have at this point. The people sticking around and racking up hundreds of hours clearly think the gunplay and co-op chaos are worth it, but the recurring stutter, crash, and shader-compile complaints are common enough that they can't be waved off as isolated hardware issues. The advice that keeps showing up in player reviews is straightforward: it's worth playing, just don't pay full price and don't expect a flawless run right out of the gate. With the game currently discounted and still being patched, that trade-off is easier to accept than it was at launch.