Gearbox barely managed to release Borderlands 4 before reports of performance issues began flooding in, with PC players clearly suffering the most. Even though Gearbox's own boss warned beforehand that the game would be demanding, few expected the problems to be this widespread. And despite the studio now rolling out an initial update intended to address the worst of it, calm is still a long way off.
The patch, currently only available on PC, is said to improve stability across "a wide range of computers," according to Gearbox. However, anyone who tweaks their graphics settings must endure a full shader recompilation, a process that can take up to 15 minutes. Console players will have to wait; there's still no word on when PlayStation and Xbox versions will receive the update, even though those platforms also suffer from crashes and stuttering.
Gearbox also points Nvidia users to an official "Borderlands 4 NVIDIA Optimization Guide" featuring recommended settings and the latest Game Ready Driver 581.29. It sounds promising, but many Steam users claim the patch hasn't helped. Some report persistent crashes, others say the game now stutters more than before, and a few have even lost their character skins.
Gearbox has yet to comment on these new issues but promises more updates in the future.