Gaming Borderlands 4 has TWO DRM Layers and requires a 8-Core CPU.

[BlusterBong]

For the three people still hyped for Borderlands 4, it turns out that Randy Pitchford and his merry band of chucklefucks has done some very cheeky shit this time.

Besides the bloated minimum requirements that gatekeep many budget builds even if you wanted to pirate the game (fucking don't, just let Randy's company rot already.)

Yes, 16 Gigabytes of RAM is needed and a fucking 8-core CPU. (The Ryzen 5 5600X for example has 6 cores, Borderlands 4 wants 8.) And this is Borderlands 3's minimum requirements

isn't it amazing how a game from 2020 requires less way weaker hardware than the game being made in 2025 despite hardware technology not really advancing too much?

Besides the bloat comming from Unreal Engine 5 allowing for devs to be lazy with optimizations, what else could have bloated these requirements?

DRM of course, but not just your typical Denuvo, but a new form of DRM called "Symbiote" What is it? nobody knows yet, but some people think that that this "Symbiote" could be (hold your shock if it turns out to be true) Kernel Level DRM. Yes, for $70 (and/or 100 GBs if you sail the seven seas or buy it legit since you gotta download it to play anyways), you too could have a SINGLE PLAYER video game that straight up can access information to your computer if you use Windows. The likelyhood of this being the case being that Steam forces publishers to disclose any DRM measures they put into the game.

But if this turns out to be true, then Linux users won't even be able to play it for the very obvious reasons listed above.


UPDATE 6/19/25: The "Symbiote" DRM has since been officially clarified to have been the codename to Gearbox's Proprietary Anti-Tampering mechanism that was apparently added to the steam page's DRM listing by complete accident.

"Hello all, We have seen some questions about Symbiote. Symbiote is not a DRM tool and was erroneously added to the Steam page, where we've removed it. Symbiote is an internal code name for our proprietary anti-tamper tech used to prevent exploits, including store platform spoofing. It operates strictly in user mode, meaning it does not run at the kernel level."

Source Credit to @lightwo for catching this.

 

[Moe87]

FUCK to Randy Pitchford.

Hey hackers, please crack this game really HARD and send a message to Randy Pitchford when it is hacked.

 

[Jayro]

Never heard of Symbiote DRM before. Then again, I don't really pirate PC games anymore.

 

[Reploid]

Only game on UE5 without bloated system reqs was Split Fiction. Well, Behemoth on Quest 2 actually runs pretty well, all things considered.

 

[Armadillo]

I'd guess the 8 core thing is bollocks. 5600x is quicker than the 2700x even in things that typically use all cores (like encoding), something newer like a 9600x (also 6 core) will dump all over it. No way is that a proper requirement unless it's artificially enforced (even then I'd guess 12 logical cores will pass it).

System requirements are often questionable if we are being kind and complete bollocks if we are not.

 

[Robert Newbie]

I've never played a Borderlands game, but I feel like Randy Pitchford's reputation really took a huge dive around 2011. Duke Nukem Forever didn't live up to expectations, and Gears of War seems to have fizzled out after the third game.

I feel like, if the game you're developing isn't a graphical showcase, like Half-Life 2 or Crysis, it's wiser to make the game compatible. I haven't seen any footage, but I like to think graphics hype would have reached the sites I frequent.

Stellar Blade seems to have proved that people will buy the games they like, regardless of DRM, but heavy DRM is just bad business. Plus, I could see an avalanche of negative reviews in response to these decisions.

People talk, and that whole kernel-level business concerns me.

 

[sarkwalvein]

I usually buy my games, but well... they are forcing me to play the cracked version... or I would say that if I even cared about Borderlands 4.

 

[ChibiMofo]

For the three people still hyped for Borderlands 4, it turns out that Randy Pitchford and his merry band of chucklefucks has done some very cheeky shit this time.

Besides the bloated minimum requirements that gatekeep many budget builds even if you wanted to pirate the game (fucking don't, just let Randy's company rot already.)
View attachment 511838View attachment 511835

Yes, 16 Gigabytes of RAM is needed and a fucking 8-core CPU. (The Ryzen 5 5600X for example has 6 cores, Borderlands 4 wants 8.) And this is Borderlands 3's minimum requirements

View attachment 511837View attachment 511839
isn't it amazing how a game from 2020 requires less way weaker hardware than the game being made in 2025 despite hardware technology not really advancing too much?

Besides the bloat comming from Unreal Engine 5 allowing for devs to be lazy with optimizations, what else could have bloated these requirements?
View attachment 511840

DRM of course, but not just your typical Denuvo, but a new form of DRM called "Symbiote" What is it? nobody knows yet, but some people think that that this "Symbiote" could be (hold your shock if it turns out to be true) Kernel Level DRM. Yes, for $70 (and/or 100 GBs if you sail the seven seas or buy it legit since you gotta download it to play anyways), you too could have a SINGLE PLAYER video game that straight up can access information to your computer if you use Windows. The likelyhood of this being the case being that Steam forces publishers to disclose any DRM measures they put into the game.

But if this turns out to be true, then Linux users won't even be able to play it for the very obvious reasons listed above.

Some people just want to bitch about everything. And some people hate either Sony, MSFT, Nintendo or specifically Randy.

How about a little reality? I bought an $850 PC from Alienware in 2019 that has a "fucking 8-core CPU," 16 gigabytes of RAM, and a 2070. I mean you can't even buy a PC that weak anymore. If your PC is seven years old, do NOT expect it to run the very latest PC games. Your Core 2 Duo with 4GB and Radeon 790 just doesn't cut it anymore.

As for the rumors from the usual losers who can't stand that they can't pirate Denuvo games and spend most of their lives trying to prove that it hinders performance by like, at least 2 fps and does other unproved nefarious things, well the rest of us know to ignore them. Just like we've been ignoring Linux since 1996.

"despite hardware technology not really advancing too much?"
LOL! Dude. You are embarrassing yourself now.

Oh, and the Switch 2 can run Borderlands 4. Do keep that in mind.

 

[BlusterBong]

Never heard of Symbiote DRM before. Then again, I don't really pirate PC games anymore.

That's because it's a brand new DRM implementation presumably done by 2K/Gearbox themselves, search results that wern't directly related to Borderlands 4 or in a different language (because i guess english jurnos have noticed yet) were talking about the Symbiote Linux Malware, which also caused some worried confusion too.

 

[ChibiMofo]

I usually buy my games, but well... they are forcing me to play the cracked version... or I would say that if I even cared about Borderlands 4.

If I had a penny for every time I heard that excuse being used to justify stealing games, I could afford to buy these games instead of stealing them. ("They forced me into a life of crime by doing these evil things, like trying to protect it from being stolen!")

 

[tech3475]

It will be interesting to see how much, if any, the DRM has an effect on performance once it's removed.

 

[BlusterBong]

Some people just want to bitch about everything. And some people hate either Sony, MSFT, Nintendo or specifically Randy.

Maybe because people are worried about how much of a dip in performance Denuvo and this new form of DRM will cause?

How about a little reality? I bought an $850 PC from Alienware in 2019 that has a "fucking 8-core CPU," 16 gigabytes of RAM, and a 2070. If your PC is seven years old, do NOT expect it to run the very latest PC games. Your Core 2 Duo with 4GB and Radeon 790 just don't cut it anymore.

Tell that to the budget conscious builds that use CPUs or other parts that are more budget friendly or use more casual PCs like Dell Inspirons or Lenuvo ThinkCentres, they often arn't lucky enough to be able to splurge that much money over that. the fact that a game is so woefully inefficient that you have to use eight entire cores just to play it like you're doing super high end workstation tasks should be unacceptable, even more so when the previous entry has way more tame requirements.

"despite hardware technology not really advancing too much?"
LOL! Dude. You are embarrassing yourself now.

Please refer back to this because you said this the last time I talked about PC hardware, because it's still true.

 

[SeventhSon7]

If I wanted to shitpost about stealth malware that came with a game I'd call it Symbiote

 

[a_username_that_is_cool]

i cant wait for the 12GB GPU i have in my computer to explode if i play this game! will i? no

 

[Moe87]

I've never played a Borderlands game, but I feel like Randy Pitchford's reputation really took a huge dive around 2011. Duke Nukem Forever didn't live up to expectations, and Gears of War seems to have fizzled out after the third game.

I feel like, if the game you're developing isn't a graphical showcase, like Half-Life 2 or Crysis, it's wiser to make the game compatible. I haven't seen any footage, but I like to think graphics hype would have reached the sites I frequent.

Stellar Blade seems to have proved that people will buy the games they like, regardless of DRM, but heavy DRM is just bad business. Plus, I could see an avalanche of negative reviews in response to these decisions.

People talk, and that whole kernel-level business concerns me.

I'm wonder about fate of Borderlands 2 when released in 2012?

I remember about preordered Borderlands 2 on PC in 2012 because I loved first Borderlands, also bought their DRM too.

Borderlands 3 changed the tune due to buggy launch and it wasn't smooth experience like I played on BL1 and BL2.

 

[NotUsingAnAltAccount]

If this really will be a kernel level DRM, then they're digging their grave even deeper.

 

[Moe87]

EDIT: [Double post for some reason, sorry. Please remove this mods?]

You have to report your post to moderator to get removed.

 

[sarkwalvein]

If I had a penny for every time I heard that excuse being used to justify stealing games, I could afford to buy these games instead of stealing them. ("They forced me into a life of crime by doing these evil things, like trying to protect it from being stolen!")

This is dumb, I mean, the DRM is really a valid reason to buy the game and then crack it, or even better due to security concerns just not buy or play the game at all.

Regarding the point of "6 cores being too old" just lines up with the ideas of more planned obsolescence and more generating waste out of something that is at least as powerful as the PS5 CPU (probably quite more) as e.g. a Ryzen 5600. Why would I put more waste into this world throwing it away and buying a new CPU? Just to run the "DRM"? You are paying for the fucking shit game anyway to play it not to waste electricity in a DRM, trying to turn a perfectly working computer into trash just for a DRM is absurd, what for? I won't support policies that just generate more E-waste for the sake of it.

As I said, and now being serious, I usually buy my games, but I won't buy shit with DRM that doesn't make the game any better and makes my PC useless for the game. I won't pirate it either, they can just shove it up their arse. Also, why would I trust and install a DRM that goes so deep into the OS doing shit I don't give a fuck about and quite probably creating new vulnerabilities in my PC for hackers to exploit them?

 

[Robert Newbie]

I'm wonder about fate of Borderlands 2 when released in 2012?

I remember about preordered Borderlands 2 on PC in 2012 because I loved first Borderlands, also bought their DRM too.

Borderlands 3 changed the tune due to buggy launch and it wasn't smooth experience like I played on BL1 and BL2.

It sounds like you appreciated the first two games. So far, the remarks on gbatemp have been negative towards Borderlands 3. It's a shame because Randy Pitchford had a decent reputation going into the 2010's, but I'm not expecting a smooth launch for Borderlands 4.

 

[Exnor]

This is why i still stick to playing on consoles. Games on "PC" are still a mess of requirements and compatibily.

Also "fucking 8-core" ? So hyper threaded cores are out of the table? I know there's a small difference in performance but modern hyper threaded are not enough?

32GiB of RAM PLUS 12+GiB of VRAM? Now those are some demanding specs.

Back to my Series X.

Also i bet they will make a Switch 2 port soon lol.