Borderlands 4 had one of the most successful launches in the history of the Borderlands series, as shown by the remarkable 200,000 concurrent players the game had on its release day. Despite the large concurrent player count, Borderlands 4 developer Gearbox Software has faced criticisms surrounding the game’s poor PC performance and allegations that the game is a vehicle for spyware. 

Despite Borderlands 4’s massive playerbase and positive critic reviews, many fans were left disappointed by the game’s poor PC performance. One review on Steam described a constant battle with Borderlands 4, with their gameplay suffering due to stuttering, frame drops, and loading screen errors. A different reviewer on Steam had little issues with gameplay performance, as they had a powerful laptop which could run the game at 60 FPS and 3440x1440p, but was disappointed by cutscenes stuttering and maxing out at 30 FPS. 

In response to player concerns surrounding game optimization, Gearbox released an optimization guide on Steam. The guide lists the minimum and recommended specs requirements for the game to run smoothly on PCs. In addition to technical advice, a note left by Gearbox states, “Please note that any time you change any of your graphics settings, your shaders will need to recompile. Please keep playing for at least 15 minutes to see how your PC’s performance has changed.”

Some players were also worried about the terms of service associated with Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of Gearbox. Four months ago, a reddit post on the Borderlands 3 subreddit discussed EULA changes to the games terms of service. According to Take-Two, these changes were implemented to stop hackers and modders from disrupting the gaming experience of others. However, many players viewed this as an unsatisfactory explanation and saw it as an attempt to gain unrestricted access to people’s PCs. These concerns resulted in all of the original Borderlands titles being flooded by negative reviews.

Player concern about spyware has persisted, with one review for Borderlands 4 claiming that players were volunteering their gaming purchase/usage history, chat logs, billing information, and more by agreeing to Take-Two’s terms of service. Yesterday, Gearbox uploaded a response to the spyware allegations on Steam. They firmly denied the accusations, stating “Take-Two does not use spyware in its games,” and “Take-Two collects…information to deliver its services to players, including to protect the game environment and player experience.” The response also reiterates Take-Two’s strong stance against individuals who hack or modify their games. 

The overall rating for Borderlands 4 is currently “mixed” on Steam. It is unclear whether or not Gearbox’s response to fan criticisms and concerns will improve overall player satisfaction with the title.