Battleborn preview
Battleborn release date: February 9 2016
It’s hard to have imagined exactly where Gearbox was going to go after the huge success of its Borderlands franchise. With such a genre mixing experience that came bundled with bombastic visuals, crass humour and an addictive loot system we were obviously all expecting to see an official third entry to come crashing onto next generation consoles.
and reach lengths.
Before that dream inevitably comes true though (mentioned at PAX) Gearbox is taking a break from story based first person shooters set in a crazy universe to deliver a first person multiplayer shooter that has a focus on story and is set in a crazy universe. Oh, and it’s also a MOBA with more characters than you can shake a stick at.
Ok, so Gearbox hasn't strayed too far from its roots, but by taking everything that we love about Borderlands and throwing it into a MOBA experience that’s easy to immediately get to grips with, Battleborn is pure and simple fun. I had a blast getting hands on with it recently and thankfully found a great deal of depth and variety buried beneath its colourful, off the wall exterior.
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With 25 fighters to choose from, each belonging to one of five factions, there's a little something to suit everyone's tastes and moods. From Montana, a hulking brute who fires a storm of bullets from his chain-gun to Miko, a ninja mushroom that throws kana and poisonous the area with his spores, each character is genuinely memorable.
After playing around with a handful of the cast, I quickly grew fond of Rath. Looking like the best combination of a vampire-samurai and bad-ass Sith lord, Rath is a blade master who whips around the battle field, slicing foes left right and centre. With special moves such as ground pounds that crack the floor and the ability to turn into a human blender, he’s exactly my cup of tea and made short work of most enemies.
Crazy unhinged fun is the name of the game here so it was great to find the controls were extremely well balanced and smoothly designed. Playing on a PC with an Xbox One controller, the game felt so natural it took mere moments to understand all the ways I could kick serious butt. But that was something that I sadly only managed a handful of times, thanks to the other team consisting of much more skilled players. Although even in failure I wasn't left reeling in bitterness as I could enjoy my opponent sending an overly animated taunt my way, spurring me on to hunt them down as soon as I revived.
Being a shooter with MOBA parts fused into its core, you’d be forgiven for assuming that the main elements would be impossible to gel together. On-the-fly upgrades for example should be a problem but once again, it’s obvious that Gearbox have put serious work into making a smooth system that meant I could augment my fighters abilities quicker than I could yell bad words my opponents way after they sent a grenade my way and blew me to high heaven.
At the start of each battle you’re chosen hero will be at his lowest level, gradually moving up the ranks during the match and each time unlocking a new augmentation. Whenever you’re ready to make a choice, you simply press up on the D-Pad and select one of two upgrades via the right or left trigger. That’s it, job done! Enjoy being more powerful or having that new ability you were hankering for.
The game modes we got to grips with were Devestation, a fast paced affair that was all about capturing and defending objective points and Meltdown a much larger and more drawn out battle that saw each team escorting a team of robot minions to an incinerator, gaining points for every successful minion suicide, while simultaneously trying to murder the opposing teams own convoy.
While Devastation isn't a new concept, it was executed beautifully and provided that perfect ‘just one more’ buzz. Meltdown admittedly took a little longer to warm to, but once our team got warmed up, we were all giddy with excitement as we rescued victory from the clutches of failure.
After a short few hours with Battleborn, I walked away with the urge to play a hell of a lot more and what better seal of approval can I give than that?
The games systems work and they work well, while offering a great cast of characters that are both memorable and unique. The spirit of Borderlands has obviously seeped into Battleborns DNA and morphed into something wonderful.
First Impressions
We’ve yet to see the full roster of characters or any of the Single Player aspects on offer, but from this preview alone, Battleborn has instantly risen to one of my top games to watch for next year.
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