Borderlands 4 Performance & Pitchford's 'Refund or Play Something Else' Stance: A Reality Check From the CEO

AI Gaming News Author · Eurogamer · Wed Sep 17 2025

Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford has sparked a social media firestorm by telling Borderlands 4 players unhappy with the PC performance to 'get a refund' or 'play a different game,' defending the title as 'pretty damn optimal' while placing optimization responsibility on players. Despite the controversy, the game is drawing hundreds of thousands of concurrent players on Steam, with a potential console POV slider fix on the horizon.

Right, so you know that feeling when you're trying to cast a perfectly good fireball, and it fizzles out into a damp squib because, well, the arcane matrix just isn't quite aligned? Or maybe your familiar decided to chew through the power cables? That's kinda what it feels like when a brand-new, highly anticipated game drops, and the performance is… let's just say, less than magical. And when the wizard in charge tells you to just grab your broomstick and fly off if you're not happy? Well, that's precisely the situation Borderlands 4 players found themselves in recently.

Since its launch, Gearbox's latest looter-shooter, Borderlands 4, has been stirring up a bit of a storm, not just with its cel-shaded chaos, but with its technical performance on PC. And Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford? He’s been out there on social media, defending the game with the tenacity of a psycho trying to punch a vault hunter. His message to disgruntled players? A pretty blunt, 'get a refund from Steam if you aren't happy with it.' Blimey, no beating around the bush there, is there?

Now, Jeff here loves a bit of honest chatter, but this particular piece of advice comes after Pitchford has been on what can only be described as a digital tirade, steadfastly declaring the game 'pretty damn optimal.' Optimal? My spell-checking orb is giving me side-eye on that one, especially when players are reporting a rather different experience. It’s like saying your teleportation spell worked perfectly, even though you ended up three blocks away and slightly inside a lamp post.

The core of Pitchford's argument seems to revolve around the idea that every PC gamer 'must accept the reality of the relationship between their hardware and what the software they are running is doing.' Which, fair enough, is a truism that sits at the heart of PC gaming. We all know that shoving a super-high-fidelity game onto a potato rig isn't going to end well. But the implication here, as many players interpreted it, was that the onus for getting the game to run smoothly falls squarely on *them* – the players – to perform their own optimisations, rather than the game shipping in a universally polished state.

One player, evidently quite exasperated, piped up to say their 'product doesn't meet the standards' and confessed it took them days – *days*, mate! – to get Borderlands 4 to a 'tolerable state.' And Pitchford's reply? Pretty much a reiteration of his original sentiment: 'You can do whatever you want. The game is the game. Please get a refund from Steam if you aren't happy with it.' He then conjured up a rather vivid analogy about not putting a Ferrari engine in a monster truck and expecting it to drive like a Ferrari. Which, again, has a certain logical elegance to it, but also feels a bit like telling someone their broken wand is fine, they just need to learn a more complex incantation to make it work.

He pushed for players to use tools like DLSS (which, yes, is a wizard's trick for frame rates) and to mess with the settings to find their sweet spot. 'If you're not happy using the tools available to you to improve frame rate and you're not happy with the frame rate you have, you should play a different game.' Ouch. That's a bit like a blacksmith telling you if his sword isn't sharp enough, you should just fight with your bare hands or find another weapon. It’s a bold stance, especially when many gamers expect a AAA title to hit the ground running, or at least jog comfortably, without needing a full engineering degree to get it there.

Pitchford even went as far as to state that the game is 'awesome and it is designed to be just fine of an experience at 30fps and feel great at 60fps.' Now, 30fps being 'fine' for a modern, fast-paced shooter on PC in 2025? That’s a conversation starter, isn't it? While console players might be more accustomed to that frame rate, the PC crowd, with their souped-up rigs and shiny ray-tracing dreams, often aims for something considerably smoother. It feels like a subtle shift in goalposts, perhaps? Like saying your magic carpet is designed to be just fine at a slow crawl, even though everyone knows it *should* be soaring.

But here's the kicker, the wonderfully chaotic twist in this tale: despite the performance gripes and the CEO's somewhat fiery defence, Borderlands 4 is proving to be pretty darn popular. It hit a concurrent player count of over 304,000 on Steam, which, while not quite touching the mystical heights of Hollow Knight: Silksong's player base (a cheeky little comparison, that), is still a solid number. It seems that even with the grumbling, players are diving into Pandora with gusto, looting, shooting, and generally having a grand old time. Pitchford himself noted, with what I imagine was a triumphant grin, 'Holy bananas you guys played a LOT of Borderlands 4 over the weekend. The backend on-line services all held, which is what we hoped would happen!' So, the foundations of the digital realm, at least, seem stable.

And in a glimmer of responsiveness, it also looks like a POV (point-of-view) slider could be added for console players, tackling those nasty bouts of motion sickness some have been experiencing. It's a small concession, perhaps, but it shows *some* listening amidst the noise. It’s a good reminder that game development is a complex beast, full of trade-offs and unexpected gremlins.

So, what's the takeaway here for us curious gamers? Well, it's a bit of a mixed bag, isn't it? On one hand, we've got a CEO standing firm on his product, suggesting players take responsibility for their setups or simply find another game. It’s certainly… direct. On the other, we have a game that, despite its technical hiccups and a less-than-velvet-glove response from its leader, is still pulling in hundreds of thousands of players, proving the Borderlands formula still has that special something. It’s a fascinating dance between developer vision, player expectation, and the messy reality of game launches in the digital age. Maybe, just maybe, some players are figuring out those tricky optimisations and still finding the magic underneath. Or perhaps they just really love shooting psychos. Probably both, eh?

Tags: Borderlands 4, Randy Pitchford, PC Performance, Gaming Industry, Player Feedback

Original article: Eurogamer