Gearbox Software’s 2016 flop of an FPS Battleborn now has a clear path to its death. Publishers 2K announced plans to shut down the multi-hyphenate hero shooter’s servers in January 2021, rendering the game fully unplayable – singleplayer and all. Battleborn’s competitive multiplayer side went free-to-play in June 2017 but the game is now barely played. This is not surprising. You can still download it and have a go, if you are curious about what Gearbox were up to before Borderlands 3.

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Gearbox’s FPS/hobby-grade coop campaign/genre blended, multi-mode competitive e-sports/meta-growth, choice + epic Battleborn heroes game, Battleborn [official site], is being put out to pasture. By that I mean that the shooter has no more planned content on the horizon and creative director, Randy Varnell, is moving to another project but the servers are staying up for the time being. (more…)

Having attempted to try out Gearbox FPS/hobby-grade coop campaign/genre blended, multi-mode competitive e-sports/meta-growth, choice + epic Battleborn [official site] heroes… thingummy Battleborn’s new PvP mode, Supercharge, I must excuse myself to make an angry cup of tea.

I HAVE MY ANGRY TEA NOW. Right. So what is Supercharge? … [visit site to read more]

My brother’s elderly cat decided to start pooping behind the television rather than take himself outside. To combat this my mother set up a row of cacti at cat butt height behind the television and thus began a battle of wills which spanned that cat’s remaining years. Speaking of free-to-play competitive multiplayer scenarios you can enjoy from the comfort of your living room, Battleborn has now made its competitive multiplayer modes available free of charge. … [visit site to read more]

Battleborn [official site] publisher 2K will continue to support the game despite a performance which its parent company described as “below our expectations”. You could also title this article:”I listened to the Take-Two Interactive Q1 2017 earnings conference call so you didn’t have to.”

I was curious as to how the subject of Battleborn would be handled because, although Take-Two Interactive CEO, Strauss Zelnick, said on the call that “the game launched to solid reviews”, mine was not one of those. Audiences on PC didn’t flock to the game either despite all the marketing I saw and it quickly vanished from the top 100 in terms of Steam’s daily player/concurrent player charts. When I put the review up the week after the game’s release it was actually below Gearbox’s four-year-old game, Borderlands 2.

Here are the relevant bits:

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The latest offering from Humble Bundle is a stack of 2K games, including third-person horrors-of-war shooter, Spec Ops: The Line [official site] in the lowest tier. That’s yours for a dollar or more but (the horror, the HORROR) you’ll have to take a copy of Duke Nukem Forever as well. The Darkness 2 is the much more palatable final third of that one dollar selection. Jumping to the next tier, with a minimum buy-in of $8.37, gets you a copy of Civ V, NBA 2K16, Mafia II and…a Battleborn skin pack. Civ V is decent, even without the expansions, but I’d be tempted to wait until October for the sequel.

Spec Ops is the star here. At that price, it’s close to unmissable.

… [visit site to read more]

Okay, shh shhh I’m going to do it. Keep quiet or you’ll blow everything. If the news editor finds out I’m posting about another already-released game during E3 week, I’m really in for it. Though this is perhaps a game not many have even noticed is out, going by player numbers. Okay, I’m going to do it. One of you distract her for me – bottle of whisky dangling from a stick should do it.

So! With bloody-minded persistence despite playercounts which have fallen out of Steam’s top 100, Gearbox and 2K’s so-so FPS Battleborn [official site] is going ahead with plans to add optional microtransaction cosmetic doodads.

… [visit site to read more]

Gearbox’s hero-centric shooter/MOBA/co-op project, Battleborn [official site], has given a proper look at the first of its five additional heroes – Alani, the water-bending warrior monk. Alice mentioned her a while back but there’s now a run-down of her abilities if you’re interested in playing as her.

The official release is on 31 May but if you picked up a season pass or the digital deluxe version of the game you can unlock her early with a hero key. (Also if you played in the PS4 open beta of the game but I don’t know if we’re allowed to mention that on a PC gaming site without alarms sounding and the walls starting to crumble.)

Here’s her intro video:

… [visit site to read more]

Battleborn [official site] will get its first free extra character later this month, Gearbox have announced. More specifically, Alani will arrive on Tuesday, May 24th for folks who’ve bought the DLC season pass, then May 31st for everyone else. Pip didn’t really like Battleborn but if you’re still playing then hey, I guess you do. You’re probably quite keen to soon have some sort of healy warriory waterwoman to play as. Wouldn’t turn down a double XP weekend either.

… [visit site to read more]

Battleborn [official site] is Gearbox’s hero-shooter-sometimes-a-MOBA-sometimes-co-op-story-sometimes-all-these-other-things thingummy. Having spent many hours with it I’m no closer to a succinct definition of what it actually is but I can tell you I did not have a great or inspiring time. Here’s why:

… [visit site to read more]