As Borderlands 4 rapidly approaches its one-month anniversary, it continues to receive updates that aim to make it a better experience for players. As of today, October 2, the game has received a total of five updates, but only the two most recent patches have really done a number on the game’s performance, stability, and balance — for better or worse. The October 2 update for Borderlands 4, in particular, is a welcome one for Amon fans, as the Vault Hunter, who was once widely considered to be the weakest, is now buffed so much that there might be a credible case for swapping to him if players haven’t already.
Amon isn’t the only Vault Hunter impacted by the patch either, with both Rafa and Vex also receiving a decent number of buffs, all while Harlowe gets left out with only a couple of damage increases to her Zero-Point Action Skill. In short, this patch marks the biggest balance adjustment to Vault Hunters since Borderlands 4‘s launch, and while these adjustments are all well and good, the update at large misses the mark in one major area. Since Borderlands 4‘s release, the game has suffered considerable performance issues, and despite one update attempting to resolve those issues, things are still not great for the looter shooter on the technical side, and in some cases, it has gotten worse.
Borderlands 4's October 2 Update Fails to Address Performance Issues
Borderlands 4's September 25 Patch Attempted to Address Performance
Since its launch, Borderlands 4 has been no stranger to performance issues, particularly on PC. Initially, reports were coming in of crashes, stuttering, and poor optimization on PC, with many users on Steam indicating that even with high-end hardware, the game struggled. This caused Borderlands 4‘s Steam reviews to skew heavily negative at first, with performance being the primary reason for its negative reception. Around two weeks after the game’s launch, however, Gearbox attempted to fix these issues with a patch on September 25.
For some, performance and stability improved across platforms after the update, with reports of more consistent frame rates, fewer outright crashes, and fewer bugs. “Some” is the keyword there, though, as the September 25 update seemed to make things worse for many others, who reported increased stuttering, hitching, or frame-time spikes after the patch. To this day, performance is still problematic, even on high-end PC hardware, as Borderlands 4 is infamously one of the most demanding Unreal Engine 5 non-ray-traced games out there.
Borderlands 4's Performance Issues Persist in Spite of October 2's Update
It might have made sense for the game’s October 2 patch, then, to address these issues, even though bringing balance to Borderlands 4‘s Vault Hunters is also necessary to ensure the game continues to be challenging for players. Considering these updates roll out around a week at a time, players who are still experiencing performance and stability issues in the game will likely need to wait until at least October 9 before another attempt is made at resolving those issues. It could take even longer, but considering how high the demand is right now for a fix to be implemented, Gearbox will presumably deploy one as soon as possible.
Again, balance updates are important for a game like Borderlands 4, not because it’s a competitive multiplayer game, but because Gearbox’s intentions are to ensure every aspect of the game is viable, and they also want to increase its longevity as much as possible. Still, even though the star of the October 2 update is undoubtedly the much-deserving Amon, it would have been nice to at least see some performance issues resolved in this patch. For now, players can only keep their fingers crossed for the next update to hit its mark.