Borderlands 4 Reportedly Drops Denuvo — and Gets Cracked Fast

Well, this is a plot twist worthy of a Vault Hunter. Word on the street is that Borderlands 4 may have quietly ditched Denuvo, and if that's true, it didn't take long for the pirates to pounce.

According to Tech Power UP, rumors are swirling that a recent update to Borderlands 4 — roughly a year after launch — removed the controversial DRM. Neither 2K Games nor Gearbox Software has confirmed anything yet, so treat this as unverified for now. The Steam store page still lists Denuvo, and SteamDB doesn't explicitly show it's gone either. But here's the interesting bit: the latest update shaved 171.69MB off the game's file size, and several packages were removed from the game files. That's the kind of housekeeping that gets people talking.

While there's no solid benchmark data proving the impact yet, some players are already reporting smoother performance. One claim floating around: at 1440p on medium settings, frame rates jumped from around 50 FPS to 70–80 FPS after the change. Borderlands community blogger @ExploredFiction said they checked the game files and backed up the rumor. Take that with a grain of salt, but it's the kind of anecdote PC players have been desperate to hear.

And according to iXBT Games, the standard PC protection was cracked not long after that line of defense supposedly vanished. Previously, the game's Denuvo had been bypassed using a Hypervisor method — so this isn't the first time the armor has been tested.

For PC players, Denuvo has been a constant talking point around Borderlands 4. Plenty of folks have complained about performance issues, pointing fingers at Unreal Engine 5 and the DRM system. Over the past year, Gearbox Software has rolled out a steady stream of updates — adding new content, squashing bugs, improving performance, and dropping batches of cosmetic and story-focused extra content. Last month marked the game's one-year anniversary, and the studio celebrated with a DLC bundle featuring a new character and fresh story content.

So what does this all mean? If the Denuvo removal is real, it could be a win for legit players tired of performance headaches — though the speedy crack is a reminder that DRM is often a losing battle. We'll keep an eye out for official word from 2K or Gearbox.

Have you noticed any performance changes in Borderlands 4 lately? Drop your FPS before-and-after stories in the comments — we're all ears.