Having played through and enjoyed Borderlands, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, Borderlands 2, and Borderlands 3, I don't think anyone will be surprised when I say I'm eager for Borderlands 4. When it came out, two things disappointed me: one was the price, which, while €10 more than "normal," isn't much, but it does reflect a shift in trends; the other was that it wasn't verified for the Steam Deck. Well: Borderlands 4 is now verified for Valve's console.
Ad I arrive from the Borderlands account on the social network X, and He did it on February 4thShortly before, some content creators had already uploaded videos to YouTube claiming that the latest patches had made the game playable on the Steam Deck, but not everyone agrees. We need to take it one step at a time, because the controversy is brewing.
Borderlands 4 at ~40fps on the Steam Deck
Valve has given it the verified badge because it already averages over 30fps. In fact, That average is usually around 40fps, but with some nuances.To reach that figure, the Steam Deck configuration uses a very aggressive upscaling (FSR on ultra performance), and this makes it look blurry.
Since I haven't personally played Borderlands 4, I only have a similar point of reference, which is what happens when playing God of War on the Steam Deck: to improve performance, FSR is enabled by default, and when you start playing, everything looks blurry. It's surprising, since the game is famous for its graphics, but on the Deck, it looks pixelated by default. The best part is that if you disable upscaling, it works fine, and the graphics look as they should.
Even with all this, There are moments when the frame rate drops to around 20fpsAnd this is where people often disagree with the verified rating they've received. In my personal opinion, if the game is playable but has frame rate drops as low as 20fps, I think the title should be marked as playable. With the yellow badge, users could log in, read that the yellow indicates some areas are slow, and have more accurate information. When a game is verified, one expects the frame rate drops to be less severe.
It's worth noting that this is what I would prefer. What Valve does if a game has performance issues, even isolated ones, is simply mark it as "Not Compatible."
Another problem: removal of configuration options
Borderlands 4 isn't well optimized, and Gearbox knows it. To reach more users, they've applied patches and resorted to some "tricks." They haven't just used the most aggressive upscaling possible; they've also They have removed configuration options on the Steam Deck. What does this mean? In any other game running on a PC (and the Deck is one), you can navigate the settings and tweak certain parameters. Those options aren't available on the Steam Deck: when the game detects Valve's console, they simply disappear.
You can restore the graphics configuration options by going to the game settings while in SteamOS game mode, navigating to the Borderlands 4 section, and adding the launch parameters. SteamDeck=0 %command%This will help them recover, but be careful not to make too many adjustments or it will be impossible to play properly.
It's worth remembering that the Steam Deck has a 7" or 7.4" screen, and if something looks blurry on that, it's a complete disaster on a larger screen. This is possible in the rest of Borderlands. Configure them to output at 1080p And it doesn't lose performance, but the cel-shading used in the other four is so forgiving that there's not much of a visual improvement while playing. It's noticeable in the text and menus, but little else.
In any case, Borderlands 4 is now playable on the Steam Deck. However, if, like me, you're planning to buy a Steam Machine (if it ever arrives, which is taking a while), it might be best to be a little more patient.