Borderlands 4’s Record Steam Launch Meets a Rough PC Reality

Borderlands 4’s Big PC Moment… And The Faceplant That Followed

Borderlands 4 blasted onto Steam on September 11 with a franchise-best 207,479 concurrent players, outpacing Borderlands 2’s 124,678 peak from 2012. Reviews from critics are strong (an 84 on Metacritic), but player sentiment tells a very different story: the Steam user score dipped to “mixed,” hovering around 60% positive the day after launch. As someone who dumped hundreds of hours into Borderlands 2 and tinkered through Borderlands 3’s early PC quirks (remember the DX12 stutter?), this caught my attention fast-for the right and wrong reasons.

Key Takeaways

• Record player numbers prove Borderlands still pulls a crowd-but PC performance is dragging the conversation.
• Crashes, hitching, and inconsistent frame pacing are the top complaints, even on high-end rigs.
• Players are pointing fingers at Unreal Engine 5 features and the Denuvo DRM; the reality is more nuanced.
• Gearbox is replying on Steam and pledging fixes-patch cadence and transparency will decide how fast this turns around.

Breaking Down the Complaints

The recurring themes in early PC feedback are ugly: repeated crashes, shader stutter-level hiccups in firefights, and “how is this performing like this?” moments even on 3080/6800XT-tier hardware. Two translated Steam comments sum it up: “I’ve loved Borderlands for years… but Borderlands 4? It’s like Gearbox fell for Unreal Engine 5, charged $70, and forgot it’s supposed to run,” and “Optimization is abysmal. Don’t buy unless you’ve got a NASA PC.” It’s heated, sure, but that doesn’t appear to be coming out of nowhere.

Past Borderlands launches weren’t spotless either. Borderlands 3 infamously shipped with DX12 shader compilation issues and odd CPU spikes; many of us swapped to DX11 for weeks. So yeah, this isn’t brand-new territory for the series—but you’d hope a 2025 PC release would ship with cleaner frame pacing and better CPU/GPU utilization, especially at a premium price.

UE5 And Denuvo: Culprit Or Convenient Scapegoats?

Let’s separate signal from noise. Unreal Engine 5 can be heavy, especially with Lumen global illumination, Nanite geometry, and Virtual Shadow Maps in the mix. Plenty of UE5 games shipped with performance hiccups (Remnant II and Lords of the Fallen had bumpy openings), but others run well after proper optimization—Fortnite’s UE5 transition is the most public example, and RoboCop: Rogue City found its footing post-launch. The engine isn’t the villain on its own; it’s how teams wrangle shader compilation, streaming, and CPU-threaded systems on PC’s wild-west hardware matrix.

Denuvo attracts instant heat any time performance stumbles. There’s some history: DOOM Eternal and Resident Evil Village saw controversies and changes around DRM. But the impact varies by implementation. Sometimes Denuvo overhead is negligible in GPU-bound scenes; sometimes it adds CPU spikes or storage overhead in the worst spots. Borderlands 4’s issues likely aren’t a single-switch fix. Expect a combination: shader compilation bottlenecks, asset streaming hitches, maybe aggressive CPU scheduling, and yes, possibly DRM overhead in edge cases.

What PC Players Can Do Right Now

While we wait for patches, a few pragmatic tweaks can make the game less temperamental:

• Update GPU drivers (fresh launch branches often include hotfixes for new games).
• Cap your frame rate (in-game or via driver) to smooth frame pacing and reduce CPU spikes.
• Use DLSS/FSR/XeSS at Quality or Balanced to stabilize frametimes rather than chasing max FPS.
• Lower or disable heavy GI/shadow options; UE5’s global illumination and virtual shadow maps are big frame-time hitters.
• Turn off overlays and recorders (Steam, Discord, GeForce Experience, Fraps, Afterburner) to rule out injection-related crashes.
• Verify game files and, if there’s a DX11/DX12 toggle, test both (Borderlands history suggests it’s worth a shot).

None of this excuses a messy launch—especially at $70—but it can turn a hitchy mess into something playable while the studio iterates.

Why This Matters Beyond One Rough Launch

We’ve seen a pattern the last few years: big-budget PC releases arrive with great reviews and day-one technical baggage, then spend a month clawing back trust. The difference here is the scale of Borderlands’ audience and how crucial smooth firefights are to the core loop. If your framerate lurches every time loot fountains explode, the dopamine hit turns into frustration. It’s not just about pretty lighting—it’s about rhythm.

Gearbox is at least engaging. The studio has been replying to Steam reviews and posted the usual apology-and-investigation message: “We’re sorry you’re having trouble playing Borderlands 4… thank you for your patience while we work to resolve this.” That’s table stakes. What would actually move the needle: a clear PC roadmap, transparent notes on what’s being fixed (shader precomp, streaming budgets, CPU threading), and rapid hotfixes before the conversation calcifies into “wait for a sale.”

Looking Ahead

I want Borderlands 4 to be the best version of itself. The gunfeel is there, the loot loop still slaps, and the player counts prove the vault-hunting itch hasn’t gone anywhere. But PC performance can’t be a postscript—not with this price, not in 2025. If Gearbox ships meaningful fixes over the next couple of weeks, this story flips fast; we’ve seen turnarounds before. If not, the record-breaking launch will be the footnote to a game PC players only recommend “after a few patches.”

TL;DR

Borderlands 4 set a new series record on Steam, then stumbled with crashes and stutters on PC. Players are blaming UE5 and Denuvo, but it’s likely a cocktail of optimization issues. Gearbox is responding; if the patches land quickly, this can still be the vault-hunting romp it’s meant to be.