'Quit Game and Restart': Borderlands 4 Runs Worse the Longer You Play on All Consoles

Hells teeth not another one being a day one wreck what is up with these developers? On a plus it can't be worse than the movie!

Glad I decided to wait on this one. By the time I get around to it, hopefully the issues will be fixed and I can get it on a sale.

It’s sooo annoying! I KNEW something was ip. I guess im glad they know about it….but still

I'm probably going to wait, like with borderlands 3 where the ultimate edition dropped to £20.
Hopefully all the problems will be fixed by then.

I am actually glad I didn’t bother picking up a ps5 Pro. There are way too many issues with games releasing on it..

Wow what a great reply from Randy. Just quit and restart 😂

Sony wasted a 20 minutes SoP just for this game and Randy thanks is a broken game. I hope Sony learnt the lesson here not to give Randy and any of his games another SoP or even special treatment.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Randy Pitchford: “Please, just get a refund or upgrade your console.”

A disgrace.

And this Randy fella... no excuses.

I think refund policies for digital games should be the same across all platforms. At the moment certain policies are completely unfair to consumers.

I’ve played about 5-6 hours so far on the pro and had to restart a couple of times . For me it seems to dip randomly when I pick up a new epic weapon. I get all excited, pick up the weapon and then it’s time to take a cold shower. I’m scared a legendary might brick my console.

Developers are way too lazy nowadays and ppl should really stop buying these games with performance issues on launch. But it also gets harder and harder to take review sites seriously if they award games with performance issues high scores. Several games this year got high scores regardless of performance issues, which just shouldnt happen.

Poor performance on PS5 Pro? Don't people realise yet that this is a "premium game for premium players"?

The whole “users are the beta testers” thing is so pervasive in this industry now that the developers are beta testing UE5 while shipping broken games for users to beta test the game to beta test the engine.

@Bionic-Spencer agreed and UE5 is pretty much involved in most games that have performance issues on both consoles and PC too

Sony's PS5 Pro problems are just not going away any time soon it seems. They really need to crack down on developers who are releasing broken "Pro" versions of games. When base PS5 players are having better experiences than PS5 Pro users, it is a problem. And yes, I get it, most games don't have that issue. But the point is that it's happening often enough, and on high profile enough games, that it is a marketing disaster.

Games are just released unfinished these days. Never worth a day 1 purchase when you can get the fixed thing at half the price 6 months later. If that means the developers miss out on revenue then they should just release a game that works.

@MARl0 Why would they do that, though? It's not like developers get anything out of making a Pro version. If Sony cracks down on poorly optimized Pro games, developers will just stop making Pro editions. And then it's just a notably more expensive PS5.

As was already suggested by the lack of PS5 copies for review before launch.
The lack of QC and optimizations in this title is astounding, and Pitchfork's attitude about it even more so...

@Jammer its really not a wreck in my gameplay. Playing on performance mode and clocked 50 hours (including the counter running in stand by mode on the console) so far.

Few dips in frames, but to be honest nothing game breaking my side. Maybe im just lucky, or people are playing way too much... I can comfortably say ive maybe averaged a good chunk of hours per day.

The main problems ive had is random effects glitches (that aren't part of the weaponry) and its been fine in co op... so who knows? 🤷

Randy Pitchford really needs to learn to shut his damn mouth and get a PR person to do social media for Gearbox. This guy has put his foot in his mouth so many times his teeth probably have toe jam. Mistakes happen, but as a company how you address them makes or breaks you. To constantly belittle his consumers is not a winning strategy.

You can’t take user reviews on Metacritic seriously since they refuse to do anything about review bombing.

Real borderlands fan would clinch his teeth and bite through the mild upset.

I know Gearbox and Randy are easy targets right now (and rightfully so), but selfishly, I just want to enjoy the game and hope these issues won't crop up for me. I'm playing on standard PS5, so it sounds like that is immune?

Only like 8-10 hours in so far.

@MARl0
I agree with you on Sony cracking down - and would extend it to cracking down on poorly performing base PS5 versions too. However, I dont think this game is 'Pro enhanced', ie its running using 'boost' conditions.
If this is the case, its odd that its not behaving in this way on base PS5 - or maybe it is and its harder to discern because it has more general framerate problems on base PS5, that the Pro smooths out making this issue more noticeable.
Whichever, it shouldn't have launched.

@RoomWithaMoose
Sony can just enforce a better Pro version like Xbox do with 'feature parity' on Series S.

@Nalim
100% agree - and have said much the same in the past.

At this point, reviews that score badly performing games with high scores are just a part of the problem.

Poor Gearbox developers are gonna need to perform a magic trick to get this game performing up to standards. Lucky for them I heard Randy has a thumb drive of magic tricks to give them ideas.

This game has no pro support at all. I guarantee you the same is occurring on base ps5.

Sad for those that bought it on release. The writing was on the wall with this. Hopefully people will stop pretending it runs great on console now that the truth will start coming out from reputable testers.

This game doesn't run well on the highest end pc hardware available. This isn't Un unreal engine 5 issue, nor a hardware issue. It's a greed issue where development was cut short so that gearbox and 2k could meet financial quarter sales targets.

After pitchfords comments since release, I'm not even going to buy this one on sale. Decent game or not, there's no way I want to increase the wealth of an ***** like that.

@Jammer remember that they were looking at $80 originally for this premium game 😅

Just code your own game.

"It's Sony's fault their console is not optimized for our game." - Randy Pitchford, probably.

If I was their PR department, I'd be BEGGING Randy to shut his gob on social media. He's really making an ass of himself.

"It's well-optimized! Just buy a 5090, enable DLSS, and turn on frame gen! I promise bro, it's so well optimized!"

For heaven's sake, it doesn't even look that much better than prior games. It's still cell shaded.

I wonder what Pitchford will spew up about that now. I bet it runs flawless on his PS5 Pro lol

Randy really makes this series almost impossible to enjoy. Waste of fecal matter.

@Silenos "AAAA", for sure!!!

I never have the time to put in more than a couple hours at a time, and I’ve had zero issues on my standard ps5. Also, the game is fun as hell. Thoroughly enjoying it. Kind of a bummer that people who genuinely want to enjoy it who are having these uber frustrating issues.

Happens on base PS5 as well. Annoying, but I just quit to the menu and restart and it’s fine again for awhile. There are a few other annoying bugs (vending machines not appearing, marking the wrong items as trash, bounty targets not appearing), but overall the game is great fun. Still…they probably shouldn’t have moved the release date up.

Get randy off of social media

It's quite often a good thing that I'm too poor to buy day one games

@Sarcasmatwork I was about to say the same thing. Im playing on pro for a couple hours at a time and I haven't seen any of these issues. I agree the game is fun.

Worse performance the more you play?
Well that explains why the performance is perfect in my case.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and theorise that Randy slept in on the day Gearbox had their Customer Relations seminar

@Pat_trick i mean, it was okay when gamers ragged on the ps3 having worse multiplats instead of blaming the devs for being unable to optimize for it, so why can’t randy do it 😜😂

Huh, REAL devs find a way not to release an unoptimized game.

Every version of Borderlands 4 can make a case for being the worst version.

https://www.purexbox.com/news/2025/09/borderlands-4-performance-degrades-on-xbox-the-longer-you-play-dev-suggests-workaround

@Carnage Good to know, might quieten the pro bashers.

Should be fixed by time it comes to subscription services which is when i'll play it.

Release day purchasers are essentially paying to beta test the game nowadays.

I got the same issue on base PS5 but man it’s like handbags at dawn with some of you drama queens 🤣

Usually when a game starts to run worse over a few hours of play, it's a memory leak issue, which is something the devs should have had fixed before it was released.

Come on Gearbox, be better.

All the problems were known long before launch. No one seriously believes that the developers only just discovered this.

The notorious issues with the engine go back a long way too.

This was sold in full knowledge.

Yes we all know the old adage about when you buy at launch you pay the highest price it will ever be, for the worst version that will ever exist, but that doesn't make this behaviour from publishers and developers any less unethical.

I'm playing it now and I'm still having a blast. Thoughts and prayers to the ragers.

@EfYI it took almost a year for cyberpunk to get good.

I found a fix, similar to the Gearbox suggestion but it permanently fixes the problem. First, quit the game.

That’s it. There are no more steps.

@HRdepartment this game released in FFFFFFAAAAAARRRRRR better condition than Cyberpunk did. That was hardly even a game at all when it launched.

The next gen of consoles needs to have a selling point touted by both Sony and Xbox, as well as all the developers, that they identified this current gen has been a plague of broken software and they promise that with the new gen things will be fixed. We deserve a statement of transparency with all this now too. This hobby is too expensive for us consumers to have to worry about this nonsense.

I hope CDPR knew what they were doing when they decided to ditch RED engine for UE5 for witcher 4 and presumably cyberpunk 2. Cyberpunk was a mess but it really just needed to ditch ps4 and be delayed, cause the RED engine is running perfectly fine in that game now. UE5 on the other hand is always broken

The fact they waited until the very last second to give reviewers access to the PS5 version, was the first red flag. Randy, himself, has provided the other 50 red flags. I'm good. I'll just pickup to Trails in the Sky and Ghost of Yotei, after that.
Have fun beta testing this game for them.
Maybe I'll pick it up in the bargain bin a year from now, or wait until I have a 6090 video card to play it on PC.

A lot of open world games have cache issues , clearing your cache will sort it

The performance is fine when I play alone on my base PS5, but when I play online with my 3 other friends the game is definitely not 60 fps... It's weird since the game is far from being to best looking game on the console.

PS5 Pro has been a disaster if we’re being honest.

@spaceghost I agree somewhat even though I bought one on day one and don't regret it. Only because its an optional upgrade. Therefore even though its a disaster to some, it didn't tank the ps5 as a generation. I just wish they upgraded the CPU more. Too much was spent on the GPU which was pointless. Its the CPU that handles more of the framerate and stability side. Yes the price would have been crazier. But if you are going to make an optional premium mid gen refresh catered to the enthusiast, then just make it a pricey beast that can handle anything. Casual gamers didn't buy this

@spaceghost
Ive been really, really happy with mine.
Ive bought a few games that I wouldn't have done on base PS5 now due to framerate issues and/or too low visual quality for my liking on base PS5.
Ive also returned to a few of my favourite games from prior to the Pro's launch, which all have very significant upgrades.

Issues seem to be being reported across multiple versions of this game, including high spec PCs, and are probably present on base PS5 too (after all, it doesn't have a specific Pro enhancement, so is running under boost conditions).

@EfYI Or I have a *****-load of problems in my life and expect the bit of digital escapism I paid good money for to actually work properly...

Memory leaks, too much cached and not cleaning up, sigh, seems a bit ridiculous. I mean it is Borderlands so the textures aren't too intense for the game to handle (or however the engine is going about wrapping around things) but at the same time it's unfortunate the way it's configured for PS5 Pro.

Maybe it didn't execute how they wanted it to? Must have been a misstep there for PS5 Pro or something else with it utilizing things. Or however the release version is compared to their testing, or whatever happened between builds or dev kits to retail console. Very strange.

That aside I think like with them delaying Switch 2 they need to better prioritise certain things of how the hardware is used, I get the money angle, but Borderlands 4 was not rushed, it didn't have leadership issues (I hope) that we can assume being the case here, so it just seems maybe things were overlooked? Or not output correctly?

I mean having more power is one thing but it does say a lot to have more but not target it's aspects correctly with it's APIs or power differences then the others.

I mean how we got better development (besides the leadership/mentality/priority differences of the past) with more custom hardware, yet both being x86, both being similar enough consoles it does say a lot how much worse things would have been with more awkward custom hardware of the past continued today with this era's mentality/priority to the games, then the more flexible or standard but minor customisation of nowadays, yet bad leadership, games as particular of menus/other complexity focus besides graphics, character writing and more impressions/expectations/priorities/mentality to make for audiences then the gameplay focus of the past yet also different leadership.

Regardless of staff size being bigger, the mentality/execution and who checks things enough of code execution, time they have, and a number of other factors, has been interesting to notice this gen.

@Nalim Honestly, I realize day one (or pre-release) reviews are "the norm" because they drive clicks, but the state of releases nowadays makes them remarkably disingenuous far too frequently to be acceptable.

We as the consumers of both the review as content and the games as products need to demand better. There is NO WAY a game in the state B4 is in should be sitting at an 84 on Metacritic. It just shouldn't. In no world is it in an acceptable state for a AAA release. And yet we sit around being essentially lied to by big review sites, which only really serves them because they get to spin the backlash and the TRUTH into more articles such as this exact one we're commenting on.

It doesn't matter to the review sites if they're accurate. They just need the content to exist to extract value. But all it is is a disservice to us, the main audience. Why we put up with it is beyond me.

I haven't bought more than 3 games at release in the last 5 years or so and it's ***** like this that is exactly why. There is, almost across the board, no game that releases today that is at its best on day one. Not a single title. Nearly every single title will not only get cheaper over time, but will be patched, optimized, and usually expanded upon to boot. We have gotten to a point where we are LITERALLY paying for products in beta (or earlier if you're into early access titles), such as this right here. And it happens at every scale of title, every publisher, nearly every developer. And we just keep putting up with it. It makes ZERO sense.

There is, and I mean this, no reason to buy a game on day one of release. Not a single reason. You pay more for the worst version of the title, basically without fail. Why people race to get screwed over is beyond me.

"If you buy a game at launch, you are paying the most amount of money for the worst version of a game." -TotalBiscuit

Explain this to me. How on Earth did BL4 get generally positive reviews? The reviewers must have encountered this type of problem across all platforms, and yet they give out good scores. No wonder AAA devs / publishers put out broken games on launch, as they know people always "look the other way". This is also evident on Xbox Series consoles according to a PureXbox article.

@SingleStooge all the reviews that came out first were for the PC version only. Review codes for consoles did not go out to reviewers until way after the fact. That makes it worse. Its just says, "we know our console ver. is broken but we are releasing on the date we set in stone anyways. if you don't like it too bad FU"

Isn't it the same ***** who thought his game should be $80? That's actually quite the trick, making a game that performs worse the better the hardware is.

For everyone thar says they can patch it later GTFO these releases the bigger they are the worse they get. And one more thing dont they quality test these games in the platforms?

Hopefully people are learning to maybe not buy games from Gearbox.

@MFTWrecks MK X changed its in-game, real money store to screw over players after reviews hit. It was reported on sites but the scores were not changed. I still read reviews, but don't take most of them too seriously.

@SingleStooge You know why because reviewers dont respect out money. They have the crappy excuse they will patch it later. They dont want to lose those free review copies. It happens to much to be a accident.

@SuntannedDuck2 Nonsense excuse they just use a paying customer as a early access idiot. Pay upfront and maybe we will fix it in the future and you mean two different consoles are too much to handle? At €70 as the base price they better release it in a decent state i hope gamers wake up and refund it on a big scale.

Waiting for Randy to tweet "buy a PS6, peasant!",next!🙄🤣
Just remember this is the same Randy that sold everyone Aliens Colonial Marines on a non playable trailer only to claim minimal involvement by Gearbox & collectively blame everyone else but themselves afterwards!

When ever broken games are released, there are always a small group (<10%) who miraculously don't ("claim" they don't) experience issues even when the developers acknowledge they exist.

It's a big coincidence that so many game reviewers fall into that group

I would like to see some challenges under the UK sale of goods act as to what constitutes "fit for purpose" in game.

Having to restart it would seem to fail that test. I'd like someone to test issues like stutter and screen tearing too, as they would absolutely apply under the act if it was a new television exhibiting those issues due to a fault with the panel.

*Televisions
*DVD and Blu Ray Players
*DVD and Blu Ray discs
*Streaming Boxes
*Cable/Satellite Boxes

All would be deemed "not fit for purpose" under the act if the image juddered or tore.

*Gaming

As long as it reaches the menu screen that's enough...

Really?

6 hours in and no noticeable problems as yet.

@FinneasGH yup. They release early so they can get a surge of revenue. Likely only pushed by the suit types. As developers and engineers know when their work isn’t done. And most people are honest folks.

Another buggy and problem laced launch from a Take Two game. I’m shocked I say, shocked!

@LikelySatan Same. I read them as inspiration/insight, but not the end all be all word.

I'm far more into smaller releases that don't get reviews these days, anyhow. But sometimes, stuff like this B4 nonsense just breaks through and hammers home how bad it really is.

Im just going to come out and say it at this point it's Thursday a full week after release and they're still zero mainstream site console reviews other than one or two obscure ones.
what is going on this is incredibly suspect....
Stinks of corporate influencing a delay even beyond the obvious subversion they pulled by not releasing early console review codes.

It's Borderlands, a week later this game should be finished and reviewed.
Just be honest and keep some level of credibility and release your review we already know that the game runs like ass on consoles so no matter what you say on that front we know that truth....

Absolutely unacceptable. Can't imagine how bad this will be on Switch 2.

This is why you learn some patience, and play something else while you wait for a sale. I'll pick up BL5 on Black Friday, probably - next year. And I'll play a better version than what you're all playing now, too.

Thanks for the recommendation, Randy. I think I'll wait for a sale though.

Remember when the PS5 Pro was supposed to make games run better?

Got the oblivion remake treatment

Jesus, the 60 fps mode can drop to half that after a few hours play. Even aside from the memory leak the game dips into 40s even on pro, which shows that the cpu is just too dated and more glaring an upgrade omission for "pro." The 30fps mode is far less nerfed on all consoles.

Pretty ridiculous. Rather than wait and address it they just held back review code lol. Pretty hilarious that they moved up the release date and pitchfork said consoles ran buttery smooth prior to launch.

Intentional deception Ala cyberpunk all over again.

Please if I miss it can someone let me know when the ***** sort this out.
Then I shall resume play on my Pro.
Gaming becoming a messy joke again.

Any other faulty product, I would just get a refund on, like a kettle.
With gaming software they have you money and run and you can’t get it back that easy.

Randy: Just upgrade your PS5 Pro to a PS8 Pro and quit whining!

So basically Oblivion Syndrome, but from Gearbox instead of Bethesda.

I can't wait for Randy to call DF a bunch of hacks (...come to think of it, most people in these comment sections usually call them hacks. Huh.) and utterly dismiss their verdict while telling everyone to wait for the PS7.

I have 13 hours and my ps5 pro in performance mode. Some little drops here and there but hardly anything worth noting at all. Loving the game.

So everyone still blowing this way out of proportion, been playing for about 20 hours, I think a quest mobbed bugged into a wall. That's literally it, oh maybe a frame rate drop coming from inventory to 20+ enemy attack, oh no my frames, the worse game ever, half of you haven't even played it, also seem to be forgetting despite its "awful performance" its still getting 8's and more in alot of places.

@DETfaninATL
By the time I get round to it, it will be on GP or PS plus.

The advice is 'quit game and restart'.

It should be 'quit game and refund'.

I am not a developer but it sounds like similar problems as Skyrim. I believe there was a rare bug that if you left too many items laying around it could cause glitches. My guess is that the AI has to keep track of too many variables which can strain system resources. I personally feel that this is due to rushed development and no bug testing or optimization.

@Anke same. Its a shame. Patch asap please. NOW!!!!

It is a memory leak and not more... should be easy to fix imo. After this is fixed it will be a great game. Love it and this is my first borderlands...

@Flaming_Kaiser Well gamers should have realised with any publishers/devs at this point.

I don't mean 'volume' of consoles, yes the hardware is similar but APIs may not be (just guessing or whoever coding skill, build differences, etc. of factors), besides how their engines wrap around the hardware, I mean the APIs, the workflow of the staff. Who knows what they were doing/changed/etc. AAA companies are all over the place these days

But I won't deny 'yes' they do want to 'fix it later' I'm fully aware. I don't even buy AAA games because of the of them don't even interest me let alone how broken they are.