Gearbox has spent years lovingly crafting Borderlands 4. It’s the newest sequel in the looter-shooter franchise, but like many AAA games, its performance isn’t perfect. People have been questioning Borderlands 4 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S to see if it’s worth buying on console.
Let’s be honest, Borderlands isn’t known for its outstanding visuals. Its cel-shaded art style is vivid and iconic, but we don’t necessarily play Borderlands games for this reason. It’s the gunplay, the fun farming of Legendaries, and the tough bosses.
If you are weighing up whether to buy Borderlands 4 on PS5 or Xbox Series X|S, our console performance guide should help.
Borderlands 4 Console Performance on PS5 & Xbox Series X|S, Explained
Borderlands 4 runs pretty well on standard PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles, but it’s susceptible to slowdown, lag, some choppy textures, and bad memory leak issues.
The Insider Gaming team has sunk countless hours into Borderlands 4. We’ve collated our collective experiences, and the console performance issues are largely the same. The game can struggle with lag and slow down when a lot is happening on-screen at once. Once you start chucking projectiles, using your Ultimate Action Skill, and 50 enemies pile on you at once, it can get a bit much.
If you play Borderlands 4 in Performance Mode, you’ll have a good time. It’s not perfect, but it’s rare to find an open-world game that runs smoothly. Another issue we’ve encountered is that cutscenes can be choppy from time to time. It won’t hinder your enjoyment, but just be cognizant of this fact.
The only major concern regarding Borderlands 4 is that, if you play for an extended period of time or put the game into Rest Mode on PS5, for example, the game may suffer from memory leak issues. The longer your play session, the worse the performance gets, and it can become seriously rough.
How To Fix Borderlands 4 Memory Leak Issue On Console
To fix a memory leak issue on console for Borderlands 4, you need to save your game and exit to the main menu. Then, close the application down and start it up again.
Here’s a quick rundown of what to do:
- Play Borderlands 4 for several hours at once, uninterrupted.
- Monitor if the frame rate gradually degrades and you’re getting more slow down than before.
- If so, head to one of the game’s save point beacons to guarantee it saves.
- Quit to the Borderlands 4 main menu.
- Now, exit the game application altogether.
- Once it’s fully shut, go back into Borderlands 4.
- Load your saved game, and everything should be back to normal for a while.
- If it happens again, rinse and repeat steps 1-7.
A memory leak can be caused by different factors. In layman’s terms, the game’s memory becomes overloaded, meaning continuous gameplay continues to batter the memory, and performance slowly degrades over time until it becomes almost unplayable. The memory retains previously stored data, and doesn’t clear or flush it.
It’s the equivalent of excessively overloading your belly for food, with nowhere for it to go for a while, and you’ll notice how sluggish and unoptimal life becomes! Save and quit the game, and it should alleviate this issue. It remains to be seen if Gearbox is working on a fix for this common technical bug.
How have you found Borderlands 4 on console? If you’re a PC user, is Borderlands 4 as unoptimized and difficult to enjoy as the criticism has made out? Let us know through the Insider Gaming forum.
We have tips on how to unlock Borderlands 4 Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode, how to upgrade inventory space and ammo capacity, and what the Max Level is.
Andy is Insider Gaming's Senior Evergreen Editor and has been in the games journalism sphere in one way or another for over 7 years. His video game taste is as…
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