Borderlands 4 Should Not Be Played On The Steam Deck - Preview

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The Borderlands games are some of my favorites to play, and I still go back to enjoy Borderlands 2 whenever I can. Today, the next game in the series, Borderlands 4, has just been released, and it looks pretty amazing. Reviews have been praising it quite a bit, and I was so excited to play. So, as soon as I could, I bought the game and got it downloaded. Of course, the first thing I had to do was test it out on the Steam Deck to see if this game could run well. I didn't have a lot of hope, but that wasn't going to stop me from trying.

For those who are curious, we also tested all the previous games in the Borderlands series, from Borderlands 1 to Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, so you can check out how they all run in our written article or YouTube video.

Borderlands 4's Steam Deck Performance So Far

Going into Borderlands 4 on the Steam Deck, I didn't expect it to run. The minimum requirements are hefty, and Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford mentioned that this game should not be expected to run on devices below the requirements. Still, I wanted to test, and it's about as bad as I expected, maybe a little worse in some areas and a little better in others.

The opening areas of the game usually stuck around 22 FPS, with regular drops down to 8-9 FPS when either loading in new areas or sometimes just random spikes here and there. Still, these drops were very often and very tough on the device. It appears that CPU-usage is the big bottleneck, consistently spiking up to 100% usage, while GPU regularly sat at 80% and battery drain did not always hit the highest possible drain.

This was also all tested on the lowest possible settings, with everything set to low or off, while using the best-performing upscaler at the lowest setting. From my testing of FSR, XeSS, and TSR, I found that TSR was just slightly better performing than FSR, and both were better than XeSS. Arguably, XeSS looked the best in my opinion, while FSR looked the worst. TSR didn't follow up too far behind, though, as it made everything look washed out. Coupled with the lowest settings, where shadows and lighting could just slowly crawl in and out, it was not enjoyable.

Even though it could hold 22 FPS during fights once everything was loaded in, generally, which actually made it playable, just barely, any sort of new enemy or big effects will start to kill performance. There were multiple scruffs I was in where a random 8 FPS drop came through and led to my death. I could still get through fights, but it was brutal.

And then there is frame generation, and I can't exclaim this enough: Do not use it. The in-game frame gen is through FSR, and it introduces extreme input lag that makes it impossible to aim and kill anything. On top of that, the random stutters and drops I experienced before were 10 times worse, making the game slow to a crawl that felt like maybe 2 or 3 FPS. This happened a lot during fights, so it really only made the experience worse on all fronts.

Then there's Lossless Scaling frame generation, which is a step up, but I still don't recommend it. The game definitely feels smoother more often, and the stuttering and drops aren't felt as hard, but they still are apparent and common. Input lag isn't as bad as FSR frame gen, but it's still definitely there. It's not enough to stop me from killing anyone, but it's definitely enough to make me fall off a ledge. I don't recommend using lossless scaling at all, but if you do, keep it to 2X. 3 or 4X will make the game much worse, with bubbling effects, more input lag, and significantly worse stutters.

Either way, I performed and played better at 22 FPS without frame generation over a very sporadic 35 FPS with frame gen.

On the plus side, the game does recognize the OLED's HDR screen, and automatically pops open the virtual keyboard when necessary. It's nice to see the virtual keyboard popping up, since that's something a lot of games don't automatically do. Still, it doesn't change the fact that this is not a game to play on the Steam Deck natively.

If you are going to play Borderlands 4 on a handheld, I would avoid playing it natively on the Steam Deck. Playing it on more powerful devices like the ROG Ally X should be a better experience, though I am not sure how much better. I plan to test it on other devices today and tomorrow and will report my findings, but unless you are streaming from GeForce NOW, I would avoid Borderlands 4 on the Steam Deck.

Borderlands 4 can be purchased on Steam for $69.99.

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