Day-one patch "does a lot", but cannot lower minimum specs for Borderlands 4

Borderlands 4's minimum specs may leave a lot of players behind the curve, and that problem is not going away post-release. The game unveiled its system requirements a while ago, and it lists 8 CPU Cores as a bare minimum to launch the game. Over half of all gamers on Steam don't make the cut, according to the August Steam Hardware survey.

In response to a reviewer reporting some turbulence with stuttering, freezing, and hitching, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford took to X and said that a day-one "does a lot" to optimize the upcoming UE5 game further. Those already preloading Borderlands 4 may potentially need to prepare for a big patch hours after release.

Randy Pitchford

@DuvalMagic

@mountain_Duwe @SFiallo27651 The Day 1 patch does a lot! That said, the expectation for using a below min-spec machine should be that the game is unplayable. That the game runs at all on your system is a miracle. That you can get 55 - 60 fps out of heavy combat is actually incredible given how the engine and

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Borderlands 4 has the typical UE5 demands of high "minimum" specs

Even though it's not graphically all that, Borderlands 4 has very large open areas (Image via 2K)

Borderlands 4 had conflicting viewpoints on Switch 2 performance at Gamescom, but the real struggle is for many PC users (over 50% of them, per Steam numbers). Even though 8-Core CPUs are the new norm for getting a proper gaming PC build going in 2025, many who upgraded their rig a few years earlier (for example, during Tiny Tina's Wonderlands release) are still rocking 6-Cores.

To these players, Randy Pitchford wants to set the expectation very bluntly: the game will be unplayable:

"It's a big, bold, new, seamless world and I'm sorry to say that older hardware may not provide buttery smooth performance for the latest gen AAA games, as has always been the case since the dawn of PC gaming."

In other words, the day-one patch of Borderlands 4 is not going to open the gates for Ryzen 5 3600 users such as myself. Performance on Unreal Engine 5 titles in the AAA sphere has never been the exemplar of good optimization. The Gearbox boss even marvels at how "incredible" it is for the average mid-end PC to run the game at 60 fps during heavy combat .... "given the engine".

If it's any consolation, though, the original concern that Randy Pitchford responded to seemed to be a dud, and an effect of the reviewer's faulty PSU. As things stand, minimum specs should be good enough to run Borderlands 4 at 1080p low, even if the barrier for entry seems a bit high. Here are the minimum specs ahead of Borderlands 4 release:

• Processor: Intel Core i7-9700 / AMD Ryzen 2700x
• Memory: 16 GB
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 / AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT / Intel Arc A580

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Check out our more on the game from Sportskeeda:

• Borderlands 4 vs 3: The 7 biggest differences we have noticed
• Is the Borderlands 4 Super Deluxe Edition worth buying?
• Can you go to Elpis in Borderlands 4?
• Borderlands 4 post-launch DLC roadmap