Borderlands 4 Humiliated Compared to Borderlands 3 — Performance Three Times Worse

Borderlands 4 continues to face a wave of criticism for poor optimization, and comparisons to Borderlands 3 have only intensified the backlash.

Despite strong reviews from critics, Steam users have been overwhelmingly negative. The game’s average user rating over the past week has slipped to 62%.

The primary complaint centers on performance. Hardware Unboxed reports that on an RTX 5060 Ti, in the same location and using the Badass preset, Borderlands 3 runs at roughly 115 FPS, while Borderlands 4 manages only about 37 FPS.

Visually, the new entry isn’t a dramatic leap. Borderlands 4, built on Unreal Engine 5, looks better than its predecessor, but the visual gains don’t justify the steep drop in FPS. Borderlands 3 on Unreal Engine 4 still holds up well — evident around the three-minute mark.

The game fares particularly poorly on lower settings. To reach framerates comparable to Borderlands 3, players must switch to the Low quality preset. Even then, Borderlands 4 only hits about 82 FPS on the RTX 5060 Ti, and it appears noticeably worse than the six-year-old Borderlands 3 running Badass, where the same card delivers 115 FPS.

Source: iXBT.games