‘Borderlands 4’ Performance Worsens Over Time on All Consoles; Gearbox Suggests Restarting Game
The highly anticipated looter shooter, Borderlands 4, is facing significant technical issues across all platforms, with players reporting that the game’s performance steadily degrades the longer they play. This problem has now been officially corroborated by the technical analysis experts at Digital Foundry, who confirm the issue affects the PS5 Pro, base PS5, and Xbox Series X|S consoles.
The core of the problem appears to be a « memory leak, » causing frame rates to become unstable after extended play sessions. Gearbox Software has acknowledged the flaw and is actively working on a solution.
The « Memory Leak » Problem: What’s Happening?
According to Digital Foundry’s in-depth analysis, players will begin to encounter noticeable frame rate problems in Borderlands 4 after approximately one hour of continuous gameplay. This issue is most apparent when using the game’s « Performance Mode, » but it is suspected that the « Quality Mode » may also be affected during longer sessions.
The issue is consistent across all current-gen consoles. Players on the powerful PS5 Pro have reported « wild variations » in frame rates, disrupting the smooth gameplay expected from the new hardware. The temporary fix—closing and restarting the game application—strongly suggests a memory leak, where the game fails to properly manage its memory resources over time, leading to slowdowns.
Known issue of perf dropping on PS5 pro after several hours of continuous play. Workaround until we patch: Quit game and restart. Sorry for the friction!
— Randy Pitchford (@DuvalMagic) September 16, 2025
Gearbox Confirms Issue, Offers a Temporary Fix
The development team at Gearbox Software is aware of the widespread technical fault. In response to player reports, Gearbox lead Randy Pitchford confirmed the issue and suggested a simple, albeit temporary, workaround for frustrated players.
His advice is to « quit [the] game and restart. »
Restarting the application clears the memory and temporarily restores the game’s performance. Pitchford has assured the community that the team is « actively working on a PS5 patch to fix things, » though a specific release date for the update has not yet been announced.
Widespread Issues and Player Frustration
The performance problems are not limited to consoles. The PC version of Borderlands 4 has also been plagued by similar issues, leading to significant player backlash. The frustration is clearly reflected in the game’s Metacritic scores. While professional critics have praised the game, awarding it a strong average of 84, the user score sits at an alarming 4.6 (or 46), a common result of « review bombing » due to severe technical flaws at launch.
The situation on PC prompted Pitchford to advise frustrated buyers to seek a refund from Steam if they were not content to wait for patches. However, he noted that Sony’s refund policy is much stricter, meaning PlayStation players will likely need to wait for the upcoming patch rather than expecting to get their money back.
For now, the best solution for anyone experiencing degraded performance in Borderlands 4 is to take a short break, fully close the game, and restart it to ensure a smoother experience.
