Wesley Yin-Poole
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Randy Pitchford has continued his social media push to address complaints about the performance of the PC version of Borderlands 4, telling some disgruntled players they can get a Steam refund if they’re unhappy with the game.
Since Borderlands 4’s huge Steam launch last week, Pitchford has issued confusing comments on why the console version of Borderlands 4 lacks a field of view (FOV) slider, promised that it would have been impossible to break the Borderlands 4 servers through sheer weight of player numbers alone, told people to “code your own engine and show us how it’s done, please,” and declared Borderlands 4 “a premium game made for premium gamers.”
So, what’s the truth of the matter? Borderlands 4 is currently on a mixed Steam review rating, with most of the negative comments revolving around performance. The tech experts at Digital Foundry have said their initial analysis of Borderlands 4 on PC shows significant stutter problems, and have advised against running the game on its ‘Badass’ graphics setting, which suggests there are indeed problems with the Unreal Engine 5 title.
Still, the outspoken Gearbox chief is showing no signs of backing down, issuing tweet after tweet in response to direct complaints about how Borderlands 4 runs. Most of the tweets offer direct advice about how to make Borderlands 4 run better - which is of course a perfectly reasonable thing to do - and call for players to put their irrational distrust of video game graphics tech such as DLSS aside and use it if available to them.
But Pitchford, perhaps showing a touch of frustration about the discourse around Borderlands 4, has issued some spicier responses, pointing to the Steam refund system so players can get their money back, or suggesting fans wait for the game to be cheaper — or more powerful PC hardware to come out.
“I'm not trying to argue either,” Pitchford said in one of his tweet responses. “I was offering to help you if you are not satisfied with your experience and want some help making trade offs. I'm trying to help users understand that the software is the software and there are options available right now for people who want to play right now to make significant and dramatic trade offs between fps, resolution, and graphics features.
“That's for people who want to play now. People who want to play later can play later. People can even get a refund after buying and trying if they are not satisfied. Those are the options. My advice to users is to accept reality and tune, or to not play.
“We are working more on the software, but the software will not radically change later. However, hardware will get better (just like some or all of your hardware probably didn't exist when Cyberpunk first launched). Do you feel you need help to achieve the trade-offs you're looking for? What kind of hardware are you using and what resolution are you trying to run at and what frame rate is acceptable to you?”
There are other posts worth highlighting here because they give us an insight into Pitchford’s current mindset. After one person said he was being “unbelievably insufferable,” a non-plussed sounding Pitchford replied: “I'm trying to be helpful. What do you think would be helpful? What would you have me do?”
It looks like some PC gamers don’t like being told to use the likes of DLSS and frame generation generally to improve the performance of Borderlands 4 — and this is something Pitchford seems particularly keen to address. In multiple tweets he suggested playing with the aid of frame generation, although clearly this advice is falling on deaf ears.
“You can do whatever you want,” Pitchford said in response to yet another complaint. “The game is the game. Please get a refund from Steam if you aren't happy with it.”
Then a typically evocative quote from the Gearbox boss: “You made an analogy to a vehicle. I would not put a Ferrari engine in a monster truck and expect it to drive like a Ferrari. If you tell me about your specification, I can help you optimize your performance. I'm sorry you don't like being told to use DLSS, but that is the way. If you're not happy using the tools available to you to improve frame rate and you're not happy with the frame rate you have, you should play a different game.
“The game is awesome and it is designed to be just fine of an experience at 30fps and feel great at 60fps. We also have provided a lot of options for you to make different trade offs between frame rate, resolution, and graphics features than we would make and we encourage you to use those tools to optimize to your taste. Would you like help tuning your experience better to your liking?”
Here’s another spicy take from the developer:
“Do you want any help tuning your experience? Your other option is to not play or wait for future updates or newer hardware to come along down the road. The game will probably be cheaper in a couple of years, too.”
And:
“UE5 is the engine for Borderlands 4. There's nothing that can change that now. Shader compiling is necessary when you make changes to your graphics settings. I wish it was faster, but it is what it is. When you're done and set up, you won't have to wait the few moments for shaders to compile any more.
“I don't believe I have denied any particular issues (except, generally, to say that the software is functioning as designed and is free from major defects that affect performance for the vast majority of configurations). What I have done and continue to do is recommend that users who want to play the game now and change the trade off between fps, resolution and graphics features take advantage of the tools provided to tune those things to your liking. Would you like help tuning your experience on your specific PC?”
And so on and so forth. Is Pitchford causing more harm to Borderlands 4 than good here? Last month, I asked Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Gearbox parent company Take-Two, whether he has a mini heart attack whenever Pitchford tweets anything. In his response, Zelnick admitted Pitchford can be a controversial figure, and even suggested some of his antics are deliberate, but ultimately he’s a big fan.
“I love Randy, first of all. Let me just say that on the record,” Zelnick began. “And I love his big personality. I love his passion and he is one of the all time great game makers. He also can be controversial at times — sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. I still love him to death.”
The upshot of all this is that Gearbox is continuing to improve Borderlands 4 generally and PC performance specifically (there’s an update out although no-one knows what it did). Gearbox has posted a Borderlands 4 Nvidia Optimization guide on Steam, advising players how to optimize their graphics settings for “better performance and framerates” on PC with the Nvidia app, although users report mixed results.
Gearbox has also issued a piece of advice to PC gamers that to me reads like an effort to prevent players from making knee-jerk reactions to the game's performance as soon as they’ve changed their settings: “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.”
If you are delving into Borderlands 4, don't go without updated hourly SHiFT codes list. We've also got a huge interactive map ready to go and a badass Borderlands 4 planner tool courtesy of our buds at Maxroll. Plus check out our expert players' choices for which character to choose (no one agreed).
Photo by Leon Bennett/Getty Images.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].