On June 17, Gearbox and 2K officially revealed the system requirements for Borderlands 4 on PC — and the announcement immediately sparked a wave of outrage among gamers. Despite retaining its signature cartoonish art style, the game demands fairly powerful hardware, even at minimum settings.

What’s wrong with the requirements?

The minimum specs comprise a Intel Core i7‑9700 or AMD Ryzen 7 2700X CPU, 16 GB of RAM, and a graphics card that is at least the NVIDIA RTX 2070 or AMD RX 5700 XT with 8 GB of VRAM — at minimum quality settings only. The minimum specs are also quite high: Intel i7‑12700 or AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, 32 GB of RAM, and a GPU such as RTX 3080 or RX 6800 XT with at least 12 GB of VRAM. That is to say that the game is looking at modern and expensive PC configurations.

Player reactions

Reddit and social media erupted in criticism. Some of the most common sentiments include: “3080 as recommended? Are you out of your mind?” “Even my 5600X isn’t enough, and it’s still one of the best value CPUs.” Players are baffled as to why a game with a stylized, cartoon-like aesthetic would require near-top-tier hardware. The requirement of an 8-core CPU even for minimum settings particularly enraged many.

Unreal Engine 5 and optimization concerns

The game is built on Unreal Engine 5 and looks impressive — with enhanced lighting, animations, and detail. However, the stylized art direction remains, and as a result, the hardware demands seem artificially inflated. Within the community, there’s already speculation that the high requirements are due to poor optimization or marketing tactics.

Additional backlash over pricing model

They are also upset that the two playable characters only come with the Super Deluxe package, at $130. A standard package costs $70, and a Deluxe package costs $100. This has generated a lot of criticism about aggressive monetization even before the release.

Borderlands 4 is arriving on September 12, 2025. Gearbox still has some time to polish the game and put community fears to rest. If not, the game will likely lose a sizeable amount of its PC audience.

Borderlands 4 has already caused heated responses before its launch — not due to its storyline or gameplay, but due to its specs. Fans fear that a typical modern gaming computer won't be enough to power the game, with massive upgrades. In case Gearbox doesn't change its mind about optimization or provide a specific reason behind such high specs, the game risks releasing under controversy and alienation of its very target audience. High expectations come with a high bar — not only due to players, but due to developers themselves.