Questions about playing splitscreen on PS4

I haven’t purchased Borderlands 3 yet. I’m waiting to see if they are going to release some kind of “complete edition” or GOTY edition. They usually do something like that with these types of games a year after release. Anyway, I have a standard/base PlayStation 4, and I plan on playing Borderlands 3 splitscreen with my brother. I’ve recently heard that splitscreen has some issues, so I was wondering exactly what all the issues are with splitscreen, and if the developers are aware of and planning to fix the issues? The main thing I am interested in is the splitscreen, and if that does not work properly then I think I’d rather save my money and buy something else instead.

So they have made slight improvement here and there, but if one of you opens a menu there will be a slight lag spike. If both of you open menus your going to have to wait a moment, that was true as of last week when I tried who know where its at with the DLC.

Big note though there is NO vertical split screen which was a deal breaker had I known about it. According to GBX they have been “looking into it” Since like day one yet not a word since then so I seriously doubt they will be adding it.

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If you’ve waited this long I’d really recommend waiting even longer and buying it 2nd hand. Wait long enough for the PS5 to come out and then you should be able to score a ps4 pretty cheaply and be able to play without the eyewateringly, headache inducing mailslot version that they call splitscreen.

We bought the season pass and still haven’t made it through the second planet without one or more of us getting bad eyestrain or getting fed up with health/actionskill icons being so far out of our field of vision that it’s basically hidden from view.

Asking if they are going to do something about it only yeilds the stock answer of “We’re aware and are working on it.” At this point I’m 98% sure that means that it’s written on someone’s Action Priority Matrix as “High Effort, low impact” which essentially means they’ll start working on BL4 before doing it.

While I love this game, I could not recommend buying it as a split screen game. That aspect is still in a bad place.

No vertical split.
Menu lag is horrendous (you will lag your partner)
Text size is too small to read (eye strain)
UI elements missing from player two

  • boss health bars
  • mission alerts
  • quest objectives on HUD
  • area found dialog
  • others I can’t remember off the top of my head

They keep saying they are looking into it, but I doubt they have the resources right now while they are busy balancing the game and pushing out content. Maybe after all DLC are released. Or maybe with the remastered edition for the next gen consoles.

I made a post a while back about the problems we found in split-screen here:

I think they have improved (not fixed) a couple of them, but split-screen and consoles are largely ignored by GBX and large issues remain.

The lack of vertical split-screen sucks and as other have said, it’s just not recommendable for now.

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Splitscreen is horizontal only. Which kinda isnt that great.

Ue4 …

  1. auto Settings = const_cast<UGameMapsSettings*>(GetDefault());
  2. if (Vertical)
  3. {
  4. Settings->TwoPlayerSplitscreenLayout = ETwoPlayerSplitScreenType::Vertical;
  5. }
  6. else {
  7. Settings->TwoPlayerSplitscreenLayout = ETwoPlayerSplitScreenType::Horizontal;
  8. }

I think itsa top of the food chain descision. Or maybe a ui. Design thing.

Cuz its not that hard

Thats the c++ for ue4

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Were regular split screen players on a PS4.

IMO unless you’ve got a HD projector to play on then don’t buy the game.

Yes there are performance issues that change each week depending on the patch/hotfix but we’ve managed ok. It’s annoying sometimes the frame rate is poor and menus lock up the game for a short while. Things I’ve learned that help us are. Shutting the PS4 down after each play, not rest mode. Also loading into split screen at the start menu not in game.

As others have said the lack of v split screen is poor, I wouldn’t recommend getting this unless you have a HD projector and can get the screen size to around 110 inch. We can just about make the text out at that size. We still have to enter the menu to navigate the large map because the small in game map is too hard to read when it’s a busy area.

Yikes… reading some of the responses in this thread is just really disheartening. How did they mess up the splitscreen so bad? It worked perfectly fine in BL2 and The Pre-Sequel. In fact I’m playing the Pre-Sequel with my brother right now and it runs like a dream on a base PS4. It’s very disappointing to hear splitscreen has issues in BL3. It’s even more disappointing to hear that the developers either aren’t working on fixing it or they’re working on it at a snail’s pace. :frowning:

Can player 2 sign in with their own account at least, or do they have to sign in as a guest?

I’m still surprised they messed up the splitscreen in BL3 so badly. Splitscreen was a huge draw with all of the previous games. You would think they would make sure it works properly in the newest game.

If they don’t sort out the splitscreen issues by the game’s one year anniversary then I think I’m going to wait for the game to go to the bargain bin before buying. Splitscreen not working properly is a deal breaker for me.

I believe both players have to have an account now? That’s the way it works on XB1, anyway.

I think someone told me you can still sign in as a guest on PS4. But to @Silver-Helix’s question, yes they can be on their own account (required on Xbox for certain).

Just don’t, plain and simple. As you have seen from others co-op and split screen was the last thing they were worried about when they made the game and it certainly isn’t going to get addressed or fixed anytime soon. Save yourself the money, there are plenty of other games that can be played that work well. Like you said the previous entries in the series work great, this not so much.

Foolishly I purchased this game thinking it would work like the other 3…nope. Lesson learned.

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