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Part of shipping a game like Borderlands 4 includes hours upon hours of playtesting. Trying to break the game in new and exciting ways so that they can ship it in the best possible condition. However, it seems that Gearbox didn’t really anticipate just how many hours players would put into Borderlands 4 in the first week it was out. When fans reported that the game would slow down and stutter after hours of play on consoles, Borderlands 4 developer Gearbox had an unexpected but simple solution – turn it off for a bit.

Reports about frame rates dropping after several hours of gameplay in Borderlands 4 have been widespread, and Gearbox’s CEO has made a post on social media suggesting that players need to turn the game off for a bit. “Known issue of [performance] dropping on PS5 pro after several hours of continuous play. Workaround until we patch: Quit game and restart. Sorry for the friction!”

The exact amount of time that it takes to make the frame rate drop on the PS5 Pro hasn’t been confirmed, but we would guess that this is a memory leak issue with the console version of Borderlands 4. The longer the game runs, the more the bug compounds itself and causes performance issues. It isn’t exactly an easy fix – you have to go through the code and find where the error is, which could be as simple as an unclosed bracket somewhere. We have to think that Gearbox would have tested the game for several hours on each console before shipping, but it seems they didn’t take into account just how long players would play the game upon release.

Until a patch is released for the memory leak issue in Borderlands 4, players are advised to restart the game if they experience a drop in frame rate.

The gaming industry has come a long way since Pong blew all our minds in the 70s. We've got everything you need to know about the next big thing in games. Of course, Grand Theft Auto VI is going to be the big game of 2026, but there are plenty of other games coming out between now and then. Here is our starter guide for every gamer:

• All upcoming games in 2025 and beyond
• Gamify My Life, our weekly gaming column designed
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• How to play every GTA game in order
• Why the GTA 6 budget isn't as crazy as you think
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And be sure to check Popverse regularly for the latest gaming news.