By Jordan Ryder
To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of Battleborn. Gearbox’s new shooter/multiplayer online battle arena is set in the distant future, and all but one star in the universe has gone out. The remnants of civilization are converging on the final star and preparing to fight tooth and nail over it.
Mechanically, the game is solid, but I had a lot of frustrations with the execution. The biggest con is the story experience.
I was originally drawn to the game because I thought the premise was interesting, but the game’s campaign mode is severely flawed in its execution. To play the missions in a logical order that actually convey the story, you need to play in a private game. So, if you don’t have three to four friends who also bought the game, that means playing solo; I don’t recommend that, since the missions were designed to be played cooperatively. To get teammates, you can play in a public server, but then the missions are randomly selected and overarching plot goes out the window.
The story missions are kind of soulless, anyway. The plot becomes only background noise because most of the characters are talking heads in the corner of the screen. Remember the first Borderlands? It’s like that. You rarely interact with the characters. I found this really frustrating because the characters were great. Also like Borderlands, Gearbox infused them with snarky, amusing personalities that I really liked. It made me wish there had been a full-fledged single player game.
But at its core, Battleborn is a multiplayer online battle arena; what does the story matter? I don’t really play these, but this seems like a functional one — if that’s your thing. For those unfamiliar, this type of game pits teams of five against each other. Each player controls a “Hero” directly, and each side has weaker, AI-controlled minions. The goal is usually to push across the map to the other team’s base and destroy their crystal/power generator/monument/some other important thing.
In addition, Battleborn combines first-person-shooter elements. So tactics, FPS gameplay — something for everyone. I enjoyed this part of the game more than I thought I would. There are 25 heroes and they all have unique abilities and play different roles on a team (support, tank, striker, etc), so there are plenty to suit individual play styles.
Despite my disappointments with it, Battleborn is still worth taking a look at if you like this style of game. Its single-player isn’t really worth taking a look at, though.