Battleborn

Battleborn is a hero shooter epic, by which I mean you take the concept and style of Borderlands and infuse it with a selection of different characters with powers, specialised weapons and skills and let them run wild within a huge galaxy with plenty of things to kill.
Battleborn delivers a universe on the brink of extinction, due to several factors of evil, people just being mean to one another and a powerful star that could easily wipe every living thing off the grid. Great stuff! Players will have a choice between a selection of 26 heroes, all with unique personalities and abilities that makes playing them an experience on its own. From a cool looking futuristic samurai, a gentlemen cyborg gunman, a renowned war hero who acts like a noob and a cute cartoon bird controlling a mech-warrior. It’s all brilliantly weird, wondrous and highly inventive and it’ll make you love them all.

For those who’ve played Borderlands, you will feel right at home with Battleborn and for those who haven’t, not to worry as Battleborn is easy to become accustomed to and within no time you’ll understand the mechanics and small details of the game world it harbours. Visually, Battleborn is again very similar to Borderlands and very impressive looking as well. Dynamic lighting and a smooth 60 FPS grant a flawless experience that’s easy on the eyes and, for those with lower spec PCs, the game still looks great on the lower settings too.

Battleborn is made up of three core elements; gunning, looting and progression of your characters. You can do all this within the Story campaign and Multiplayer where you will fight a humongous amount of NPCs, ranging from small murderous droids to giant purple warriors with flaming swords. With fighting you will gain XP and through exploration you will gather loot, including credits and gun-lore. I was impressed by the complexity and vast nature of the progression system; there is a substantial amount within it to keep you invested with a huge deal of customisation and rewards to unlock. Whether you do this through single or online play, Gearbox does cater their game for both parties in unlocking rewards. It’s just a little quicker doing it online.

The quality and quantity of loot is impressive and it’s easy to see that many will be hooked on Battleborn due to this factor alone. I’m also impressed with how Gearbox have stated that there will be no micro transactions for loot creates and other items in the game which you can buy with in-game credits. You earn them by playing Battleborn and overall this made the progression and obtaining loot satisfying and engaging rather than spending real money for a quick fix.

Inside the game, action is pretty solid and with more people it’s hugely enjoyable as the action becomes ridiculously manic and fun. I will mention that for those who want a single player experience this may not be for you. Granted there are single player options for the story and multiplayer modes, but with a slower progression in ranking/unlocking rewards and with no AI partners, you will struggle in the campaign. However, this is a game where no team communication is required and jumping in a game with a bunch of strangers and fighting together is easy to do. All that matters is to shoot and at the end of the day, you’ll obtain a great deal of rewards without ever having spoken a word.

The masses of NPCs feel a little dumb as they constantly charge you and lack any tactics or surprise to their attacks, meaning you can predict easily what their manoeuvres will be. Missions usually revolve around the same formula of defending, attacking, followed by more defending. Yet there are some spectacular boss battles and awesome set pieces to break things up a bit.

Battleborn’s humour is very much hit and misses. While there are a lot of funny exchanges and moments of surreal humour, there’s plenty more which is just annoying and loud. Segments such as Geoff, a giant sentry bot thinking it’s The King of Spiders, while a rogue AI curses at it in a rather upbeat manner is pretty darn funny. Yet there is a ton of tired and weak jokes that often drag on and while replaying missions, it’s not what you really want to hear over and over. It’s nothing compared to the comedic genius of Handsome Jack and Tiny Tina, but it does have some very funny moments.

The only major thing to hold Battleborn back is the lack of maps for its multiplayer and the issues for the single player experience. This is definitely a multiplayer lead game and a darn good one. But it’s a shame that there’s no adjusting the game for those who just want some time alone and who would prefer some AI company in the campaign. However, you can place AI bots within offline multiplayer matches if your not in mood to fight other people. Half a dozen maps in multiplayer is also too few and even more so for the diehard players who will rinse this game. But the actual Multiplayer modes are very good with some very engaging concepts and, again, a great sense of progression, reward and insanely brutal action.

But thankfully Gearbox has stated they will release new content for free. This is great and definitely something many developers/publishers do as well. As it stands now, it’s lacking slightly for those who want to invest some heavy game time.

Nonetheless, Battleborn is a fantastically over the top, hero shooter that’s worth the attention of any Borderlands fan or keen FPS out there. The colourful visuals and elements of devastating team based combat and a substantial progression system that’s highly rewarding results in a great experience. My only faults are with the repetitive, and at times annoying, sense of humour with a lack of multiplayer maps and a rather isolated single player experience. This is definitely more enjoyable with other people and thankfully Battleborn is an engaging and easy game to love which I can highly recommend.

+ Awesome and spectacular multi-player action
+ Some very entertaining multi-player modes aside from campaign
+ Excellent progression system and great loot
+ Awesome selection of lovable characters

- Some annoying aspects of the humour
- Not enough maps for the die-hard online players
- Campaign is not totally suited for single players

A Steam code for Battleborn was provided by 2K Games for the purpose of this review