Will Borderlands 4 run on the Steam Machine? (Steam Machine verdict)

Short answer: yes — Borderlands 4 is out now, and our derived Steam Machine verdict is green across Low, Medium and High at 1080p, built from Valve's compatibility data and our spec model, not a measured benchmark. The catch: Steam's own recommended spec sheet asks for 32 GB of RAM; the Steam Machine has 16 GB.

Verdict: Borderlands 4 is released, and the Steam Machine's derived verdict is green at Low, Medium and High, all at 1080p — based on Valve's SteamOS/Deck compatibility data and our published spec model, not a measured frame rate. The real caveat: Steam's own recommended spec sheet calls for 32 GB of system RAM, twice the Steam Machine's 16 GB.

Verdict basis: derived from Valve's SteamOS/Deck compatibility data plus our spec-fit model — not a measured Steam Machine frame rate. See the full Borderlands 4 verdict page and our methodology for how we build these.

Why this verdict is derived, not measured

Borderlands 4 (Gearbox, 2025) is a cel-shaded looter-shooter on Unreal Engine 5, and it's available now. We hold no measured Steam Machine frame rate for this title — our green verdict comes from Valve's own SteamOS/Deck compatibility rating for the game plus our spec-fit model, which compares Borderlands 4's official system requirements against the Steam Machine's fixed hardware. That process currently rates it green at Low, Medium and High, all at 1080p.

Independently, ProtonDB — the community's own SteamOS/Proton compatibility tracker — rates Borderlands 4 Gold from 297 reports, with strong confidence behind that count. Gold means the game runs well on Linux/SteamOS after some tweaking, not that it's flawless out of the box, but it's a real, independent signal that lines up with our derived green verdict.

The Steam Machine packs an RX 7600 / RTX 4060-class RDNA 3 GPU, a 6-core/12-thread Zen 4 CPU, 16 GB of DDR5 and 8 GB of GDDR6 VRAM (the specs). That puts it roughly in PS5 territory, comfortable at 1080p/1440p with FSR but not built for native 4K. UE5 is the main wildcard on hardware like this: Lumen and Nanite are demanding, and traversal stutter as the engine streams new areas is a well-documented UE5 problem across many titles. Borderlands 4's cel-shaded art style leans on flat shading and bold outlines rather than photoreal texture detail, which plausibly eases VRAM pressure, but we don't have measured Steam Machine numbers to confirm how that plays out in practice.

Derived Low / Medium / High

All three presets carry the same derived verdict. We don't hold a measured Steam Machine frame rate for Borderlands 4, so this table intentionally has no FPS column — green here means "should run," not "confirmed to hit a specific number." ProtonDB's Gold tier (297 reports) is the closest thing to real-world evidence we have today, and it points the same direction.

The 32 GB RAM catch

This is the finding that matters most for anyone weighing this purchase: Borderlands 4's own recommended system requirements on Steam call for 32 GB of system RAM. The Steam Machine has 16 GB. That's not a close call — the recommended sheet asks for double what the hardware holds.

We don't know exactly what running under the recommended RAM does to Borderlands 4 in practice, and we're not going to turn that gap into a predicted frame rate. What we can say plainly: on paper, this is the largest mismatch between what Gearbox recommends and what the Steam Machine ships with. If you want to reduce VRAM and RAM pressure generally, running FSR Quality and Medium textures (the single biggest VRAM saver) are reasonable settings to try — but treat that as general tuning advice, not a guarantee tied to a specific FPS.

Should you buy a Steam Machine for Borderlands 4?

Honest take: our verdict here is green across all three presets, but it's derived from compatibility data and spec fit, not a Steam Machine benchmark we've run ourselves. Treat "green" as "should work well," not "confirmed to hit a specific frame rate." The 32 GB RAM recommendation against the Machine's 16 GB installed is the detail most likely to matter here, more than which preset you pick.

One more living-room detail: Borderlands 4's Steam-declared controller support is partial, not full. On a console you'll be driving entirely with a gamepad, so it's worth knowing before you buy — some menus or features may lean on mouse/keyboard rather than being fully controller-native.

Where the Steam Machine genuinely shines for this game is couch co-op. Borderlands has always been a sofa game, and a SteamOS console under the TV with controllers in hand is a natural fit for four-player chaos — partial controller support and all. If you want a known quantity with guaranteed full controller support, a PS5 is worth weighing (vs a PS5). If you're buying into the Steam Machine for the broader library and value the open PC ecosystem, Borderlands 4's green derived verdict and Gold ProtonDB rating both point toward a solid, playable looter — just go in aware of the RAM gap and the partial controller support.