Code Your Own Engine’: Randy Pitchford’s Bold Response to Borderlands 4 Critics

If you’ve been online this week, you’ve probably seen the phrase “Randy Pitchford code your own engine” popping up everywhere. This all started with the Borderlands 4 community, and it’s worth understanding the full story. In a bold tweet, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford told frustrated fans that if they think they can fix the game’s problems, they should “code [their] own engine and show us how it’s done”. Basically, he dared them to do better than the pros. But why did he say this, and what happened next?

Borderlands 4’s Rough PC Launch

So, here’s what led up to it: Borderlands 4 launched recently, and many PC players ran into performance problems right away. Even on fairly new gaming PCs, people reported crashes and low framerates. Windows Central summed it up: “Crashes and middling performance, even on 1-2 year old hardware, haven’t ingratiated the game with its core audience.” Ouch. In fact, the PC reviews were only “Mixed” because of these issues. As a longtime gamer, I feel you – I’ve been there tweaking settings for better FPS!

At launch, Pitchford actually jumped in to help the community. He tweeted advice like lowering graphics settings, turning off heavy effects, and using Windows Game Mode to boost FPS. He even pointed to a tip from a player that shot their FPS from 90 to 160 by enabling NVIDIA DLSS and frame generation (yes, just switching on smart upscaling did that). Despite those tips, many players were still upset at seeing slower performance and expensive pre-order bonuses.

Randy Pitchford’s “Code Your Own Engine” Tweet

Then things got spicy. On X, one fan suggested Borderlands shouldn’t rely on AI upscale to look good. Randy fired back with a zinger: “Code your own engine and show us how it’s done, please. We will be your customer when you pull it off.” He even added “/sarcasm” to make it clear he was joking. Basically, he was saying: “If you think you’re so smart, write a brand-new game engine that fixes all our problems and then sell it to us.” It was a bold, defensive move.

In that thread, Pitchford didn’t hold back. He wrote things like “The people doing it now are clearly dumb and don’t know what they’re doing…”, implying that all those hardware and engine experts were clueless compared to the critic. Yikes. He also reminded everyone that “Borderlands 4 is a premium game made for premium gamers… [and] cannot be expected to run on too-old PC hardware.” In other words, if your computer is ancient, don’t be shocked if it struggles. He even claimed that less than 0.01% of players had “legitimate” performance issues. Essentially he was saying almost no one should be complaining.

Community Backlash

As you might guess, fans did not hold back either. Social media blew up. One commenter shot back: “Don’t charge $70 if you cannot optimize the game. Crybaby.” Another fan said: “You need to learn PR or step down, Randy. You are a genuine embarrassment.” Those replies stung. Even a gamer buddy of mine was like, “Whoa, Randy’s in the hot seat now.”

Honestly, I cringed at the insults, but I also understood the frustration. If I paid $70 for a game that ran poorly, I might be ranting too. Other users on forums and Discord mashed screenshots of the tweets into memes. PCGamesN noted that even though Randy labeled it as sarcasm, it “attracted even more negative attention”. In short, the community was split between defending Randy (telling fans to calm down) and lambasting him (saying he was out of line).

Why “Code Your Own Engine” Is No Joke

Here’s some perspective: writing a game engine from scratch is insanely hard. Big studios spend years doing it. Most games (even indies) use existing engines like Unreal or Unity. In fact, Borderlands 4 runs on Unreal Engine 5 – a state-of-the-art engine built by Epic Games over many years. It handles graphics, physics, AI, sound and much more. So when Randy says “code your own engine,” it’s a cheeky way to say “it’s not that simple for you to fix it.”

As a gamer who’s toyed with mods, I can attest: even making a small demo engine takes months. Add realistic terrain, NPCs, and networking, and it’s a Herculean task. Epic’s CEO Tim Sweeney even pointed out that sometimes devs optimize games first for high-end PCs and then cut back for older ones later. It’s just the nature of the beast.

So yeah, from a fan perspective, hearing “code your own engine” might feel dismissive. But as a fellow PC user, I also see Randy’s point: optimization is a massive job, and Twitter isn’t always the friendliest place to solve it.

Pro Tips for Better Performance

Despite all the drama, I picked up some useful tips that can help your game run smoother:

• Lower Your Resolution: If you’re playing at ultra settings (4K) and it’s laggy, try dropping to 1440p. Pitchford even said if you aren’t going to be “4K stubborn,” run at 1440p instead. On my system, that one change nearly doubled my FPS.
• Turn Off Heavy Effects: Effects like volumetric fog and ultra shadows can tank your performance. Randy suggested disabling stuff like that. It might make the game look a bit simpler, but your framerate will thank you. I turned off fog on my last run, and it smoothed the gameplay out a ton.
• Enable Upscaling: If you have an Nvidia RTX graphics card (or similar tech on AMD), turn on DLSS (or FSR). For real: one player found turning on DLSS jumped his FPS from 90 to 160. I did the same with my card (using FSR) and saw a big boost. It’s like sacrificing some image detail for a huge FPS gain.
• Check Official Guides: Gearbox even released optimization charts for various GPU. It’s a reality check (for example, my GPU was only hitting ~30 FPS on low settings), but at least you’ll know where you stand.

Here’s what worked for me: after seeing all the tweets fly by, I took a short break, then came back and turned every setting down one notch (while keeping DLSS on). The game suddenly felt much smoother. It wasn’t 4K ultra, but it was totally playable – and that made all the difference for me.

In the end, Randy’s “code your own engine” moment was just one tweet in a bigger post-launch saga. Gearbox has promised more performance patches to calm the waters, and PCGamesN noted that updates are on the way (so hopefully those frame rates will get better soon). For now, I’m just going to enjoy the looting and shooting (controller in hand, maybe a touch of DLSS magic 😎).

What do you think? Was Randy right to snap back, or should he have taken a softer approach? Let me know in the comments. Until then, remember: you definitely don’t need to code your own engine to play Borderlands 4 – just grab your gear, tweak some settings, and have fun 😁.

In-game view of Borderlands 4: This gameplay screenshot shows the game’s vibrant cel-shaded style. It looks cool, but scenes like this can still be tough on a PC. If your FPS dips here, try lowering resolution or detail settings – you’ll keep the comic-book look and boost performance at the same time.

Vault Hunter Rafa in Action: Another Borderlands 4 screenshot featuring a new Vault Hunter. The lush environment and particle effects look awesome, but they can tank performance. Running the game at 1440p or using DLSS/FSR could really bump up your FPS in scenes like this.

Randy Pitchford’s Tweet: Here’s the actual X (Twitter) post where Randy wrote “code your own engine.” This image shows his full response to a fan complaint. It was a bold comeback that got everyone talking about game development and player feedback.

Developers at Work: A stock photo of programmers coding on multiple screens. Building a game engine is a massive coding project, as this shows. It helps explain why “just code your own engine” was meant as a challenge – real engine development takes large teams and years of effort.