Borderlands 3 is the latest game to adopt an encouraging trend — giving gamers a next-gen upgrade without making them pay for it — and in this case, it’s one that’ll be extremely welcome to console gamers who have 4K TV sets.
The image above (and embedded in the tweet below) has all the details, but just in case you can’t make out the fine print the primary news is this: on PS5 and Xbox Series X, the game will now run at 4K resolution at 60 frames per second, both higher and smoother than any console can run Borderlands 3 today.
Last year, Digital Foundry found that even the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X only managed to run the game your choice of 3200 x 1800 resolution and 30 fps, or 1080p at 60fps, making you sacrifice either resolution or a smooth frame rate, and performance wasn’t necessarily consistent even then — so a true 4K60 campaign could make quite the difference.
Gearbox isn’t making the same promise to would-be owners of the cheaper $300 Xbox Series S, of course, since that console that’s generally targeting 1440p resolutions instead of 4K. But the other news today is a brand-new splitscreen mode that supports 3 or 4 players on the same TV, letting you bring along three friends to play on a single console. That one is coming to the Xbox Series S, as well as the X and both PlayStation 5 models.
And if you’re planning to keep on trucking with a current gen PS4 or Xbox One, you get a consolation prize too: you’ll soon be able to split your current two-player splitscreen mode vertically instead of horizontally, perhaps to get a better view of the game’s desolate skies.
Other games getting free next-gen upgrades: The Witcher 3, Destiny 2, and Dead by Daylight, and — on Xbox, anyhow — any game that signs up for Microsoft’s Smart Delivery program, including Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Cyberpunk 2077. Games that will make you pay include Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War, Control and seemingly NBA 2K21.
