Following the official announcement of the Borderlands 4 release date for the Nintendo Switch 2, Gearbox Entertainment CEO, Randy Pitchford, has officially addressed questions about the Switch 2 version of the upcoming looter-shooter. One of the biggest questions fans have had about the Switch release of the game is the target frame rate, and, according to Pitchford at least, the answer to that question is 30 FPS.
Pitchford explained in a post on X that “It was important to us to not cut anything and to support cross play with other platforms. So, no. It’ll be mostly around 30 FPS, with some dips in some intense moments heavy combats or if hosting a multiplayer game in handheld mode, etc.” This suggests that 30 FPS will be the frame rate target, not necessarily even the expected average frame rate, so it’s unlikely that Borderlands 4 will ever take advantage of the Switch 2’s screen refresh rate upgrade. In
another comment on X, Pitchford also confirmed that even physical copies of Borderlands 4 will require a download, although it’s unclear if physical copies will just be a key or if some of the game will be on the game card.
Some gamers have responded to the announcement as an example of poor optimization, pointing to games like Metroid Prime 4, which will supposedly run at up to 120 FPS on the Switch 2 at 1080p while docked and at 120 FPS 720p in handheld mode, despite the limited technical capabilities of the hardware. Others question the lack of a performance mode to lock the game to something like 40 or 60 FPS. Previously, a Nintendo Creator’s Voice video on YouTube saw Pitchford and other Gearbox executives talk about how Borderlands 4 was being designed to run on the Switch 2 instead of being ported after the fact, leading to the assumption that the Switch 2 version of Borderlands 4 would be more optimized than it now appears to be. Pitchford also declined to mention what the target resolution is for Borderlands 4 on the Switch 2, so there are still a few unanswered questions and potential for additional settings presets to enable higher frame rates.
