Battleborn has a lot working against it. The newest effort from Gearbox Software is doing its best to forge a name for itself among the numerous MOBA inspired battle arena games releasing in the coming months. Its main competition, Blizzard Entertainment’s Overwatch, has already caught my attention with its most recent open beta, featuring fast paced combat, slick controls as well as a swath of heroes to choose from. While the two of these upcoming titles take large inspiration from Team Fortress 2 as well as DOTA 2, both of them feel like something new entirely, and Battleborn, to my delight and surprise, is no slouch.

What I played was on PS4 and I cant say I encountered any major technical issues or frame rate problems. Lets get one thing out of the way-Battleborn  is gorgeous. The Borderlands art style is clearly visible here, with cartoony UI and outlandish environments, the game is certainly easy on the eyes. Like Overwatch this game takes a first person perspective and while at first I thought I wouldent like it, it benefits the game greatly. As you can expect from a Gearbox game, the controls are snappy and functional. What is Battleborn though? Is it a shooter? Is it a MOBA? The answer is not quite either. With all of that said, lets jump into it.

Over the course of an evening I played two different modes, Incursion and Meltdown, spending far more time in the former than the latter. Before I could even jump into a game, however, I was greeted with a message from the game that stated I had been placed in a queue, and that this could “take a while”. Alright Gearbox, Im vaguely curious about this game, not hyped, dont make me wait in a queue. After a while, one of my friends hoped online and it appears the team finally got their server issues worked out and we were able to jump into a loby. Meltdown was the first mode that I played, and it struck me as a more traditional MOBA style map. However, there was a hell of a lot going on and I became confused very quickly. Soon after we decided to tone it back and jump into a game of incursion, and this is where I feel Battleborn really hit its stride.

In Incursion, you battle it out in a 5v5 base oriented map, with two sentries acting as guardians for your side of the map, with minions of different varieties populating the lanes for you and your enemies to use as canon fodder. Littered throughout are gold deposits that you can run through and smash to collect and spend on things turrets and healing stations as well as more powerful minions. This currency can also be used to unlock items from a loadout you create before the match. This loadout maxes out at 3 items which you earn though booster-packs that award you items that give you things like +15% shield penetration, or  +20% sprint speed. It offers the game some variety, and seems like it should help the game’s lifespan in the long run.

The heroes 3 heroes I played were Rath, Thorn and Orendi. The heroes are where this game really shines, and I have to say I am throughly impressed with the design of the characters both in their art syle and the way they play. While each of them drew on tropes of other MOBA-style heroes, such as the archer or the assassin, each felt mostly their own and exclusive to Battleborn‘s particular flow of gameplay. My particular favorites were Thorn and Orendi, both of whom I was able to put together some nice seriously nice kills and streaks. Thorn plays a good deal like your typical archer type, with a volley attack as well as an area-of-effect  ability that curses any enemies caught in its path, dealing damage over time.

The way these characters advance their abilities is quite intuitive, with upgrades called “Augments” that you select from down a binary DNA strand, usually allowing you to choose from a trait that will either award you with more straight up damage for a certain ability, or an option to make that ability more versatile. This type of upgrading is fantastic, as it does away with trolling the item shop, and allows you to make smart decisions on the fly, mixing and matching upgrades and seeing how they work together. Orendi offered up some truly dazzling gameplay opportunities involving an ability that pushes her away from her enemy, stunning them and giving her a small window to use her shadow pillar and ultimate attacks to unleash a devastating combo. This never felt overpowered, though, as there was always a chance I would miss my mark, and leave my self incredibly vulnerable, especially against a heavy melee-damage hero such as Rath who could come whirlwinding out of the corner at a moment’s notice.

Here is some of me succeeding (and failing) with Tiny Tina-Alakazam remix, Orendi, on the battlefield.

The game has a lot of small things going for it as well. Take the 30 minute time limit for instance. While I hated it the first time I lost a game because the clock ticked to zero, I found that it balanced the playing field and kept the combat from ever reaching a stand still. Another great thing I found was how every time I got a kill, a big mushroom cloud graphic with “KO” in all caps would burst forth in the top left of the screen. Things like this, as well as numbers popping out of enemies a la Borderlands, or the perfectly voiced lady-android announcer gave the game a familiar but enjoyably arcade feel to it.

Thats not to say the game doesn’t need some work however. The UI is a bit of a mess right now, and all of the text is way too small, especially since text-boxes appear on almost every screen. The mini-map did almost nothing for me as well, as I found myself using very rarely. This didn’t seem to matter too much however, as the map was intuitive enough to the point that I felt I never really needed. Overall, my short time with Battleborn made me a believer in a game that I was utterly convinced I would have no interest in. It will certainly be interesting to watch how this title grows and develops alongside Overwatch in the coming months, and I think the competition will be great for the quality of both titles.

Battleborn will release May 3rd, three weeks ahead of Overwatch

Visit the Battleborn Wiki

More Game Articles