Battleborn + DLC Review

I recall seeing Gearbox Software show off footage for Battleborn during E3 one year. The unique character designs caught my attention, but I immediately dismissed the game when I heard that it was online-centric; the idea of playing against other people made me instantly think of how poorly I do at player-versus-player games, and that killed my desire to find out more about the game. I was certain that the online aspect of the game would make it impossible for me to enjoy the game. I was wrong. One day, my friend texted me to let me know that Battleborn's open beta had started, so I gave it a shot under the pretense that I had nothing to lose in doing so. I was reluctant to go online at first, but once I did, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I proceeded to spend all of my free time that week playing Battleborn.

Here's a fun little aside that I wanted to share: when I found out that the GameStop release of Battleborn came with one of five collectible figures, one of which being of my favorite character, I pre-ordered the game as soon as I could. I was so eager to find out which character figure I got that I opened it right there in the store. Sure enough, I got the figure of my favorite character.

Now, let's address the elephant in the room: Battleborn and Overwatch are not the same game - hardly close. Some people like to pretend it's a matter of "Battleborn versus Overwatch" and that the games are direct competitors, but that's like believing that Cuphead is a direct competitor against Metroid. Yes, Battleborn and Overwatch are both first-person games with hero-centric gameplay, but that's where the similarities end. Battleborn is a MOBA, which is a game of strategy, where Overwatch is a team-shooter. which is more reaction-based. Don't see the difference? Don't worry, it should become clear as we go.

As previously mentioned, Battleborn is an online-focused game. However, it does have a story mode that one can play on their own. The premise is rather simple: a warlord name Rendain threatens to plunge the universe into darkness by destroying all of its stars, and he has only one star left to destroy: Solus. The Battleborn, a ragtag group of would-be heroes, seek to protect Solus from Rendain and anything else that may threaten the universe. Story Mode consists of eight "Episodes" that can be played with as few as one player and as many as five total, with more enemies appearing when more players join to keep fights engaging. It could be considered practice for the online modes, as some of the important mechanics present in all online modes are also present in Story Mode, such as the Gear system and level-up system. While eight may not sound like a lot of Episodes, they are decently long and can sometimes be quite challenging. To this day, I've only defeated the final boss twice; he's too hard for me to want to make that count higher.

The focal point of all games modes is, naturally, the Battleborn. Each of the 25 Battleborn have a primary attack, a secondary action, two Skills, and a Passive ability. In any given game mode, killing enemies will grant the player experience, which will level up their Battleborn, up to level 10. Each level-up increases their health, attack damage, and allows the player to pick one of two "Helix" augments that can do anything from simple number increases to completely changing the way an ability works. At level five, a Battleborn will unlock their Ultimate, which is a very powerful Skill that comes at the cost of a higher cooldown. Finishing any mode will grant Rank Experience, and upon reaching certain Ranks with a Battleborn, character-specific rewards will be unlocked, such as new Skins, Taunts, and Helix "Mutations" that add a third option to a given Helix tier.

Every Battleborn falls into one of three classes - Attacker, Defender, or Support - and has three "Characteristics" that identify their playstyle (though, one of them just identifies their complexity). They also all belong to one of five Factions, but that has little relevance over gameplay. Classes are easy enough to figure out; Attackers attack, Defenders hold ground, and Support characters help make the jobs of the other two classes easier. However, Characteristics can be vague, and the game never explains what they mean. For example, Phoebe is classed as an Attacker with the Characteristics "Brawler" and "Assassin." Sure, you may be able to figure out what "Assassin" means if you've played a MOBA before, but if Battleborn is your first MOBA (like it was for me), this term is unclear. Even if you do know what "Assassin" means, it can still be unclear what "Brawler" means. When you consider that Rath, a character who appears to play the same role as Phoebe, is not also considered a "Brawler Assassin," these Characteristics can become confusing. Characteristics do make sense when you know what they mean, since characters who share the same role don't necessarily have the same range of purposes, but the lack of any in-game explanation makes them seem quite arbitrary. What the heck is a Brawler? Or a Disruptor? Or a Skirmisher? Battleborn unfortunately will not tell you.

That said, despite falling into specific categories, the Battleborn are all quite distinct from each other. Not just through their abilities, but everything about them. Even the two characters who are literally clones aren't the same as each other. Part of this is thanks to how the developers took full advantage of the first-person perspective to make the player feel the character they're playing. For example, when you play as Attikus, the big demon-like Thrall, his horns hang in view. The camera is also positioned higher up than if the player were a shorter character such as Boldur, a dwarf-like character, since Attikus is quite tall. These details emphasize that the camera view is through Attikus's eyes and can really help players immerse themselves in the character.

Of course, another thing that helps each Battleborn stand out is their voices. For one thing, the writing is excellent. Every character has that semi-serious silly charm that Gearbox is known for, which makes a big majority of the dialogue enjoyable. Characters also have plenty of contextual lines for a wide variety of situations, from killing enemies, to seeing themselves on the enemy team in player-versus-player, and sometimes even additional dialogue tied to story missions. Although, I would argue that the bigger cause for the dialogue being so enjoyable is the voice talent behind every character. Every voice actor in the game pulls off a solid performance for their characters, which should be no surprise considering the talent involved. Here's just a few of the awesome voice actors from the game (naming roles that I can recognize): Ashley Burch - who quickly became one of my favorite voice actors ever - voices my personal favorite character, Orendi. Coincidentally, she also voices my favorite Attack on Titan character, Sasha Braus, and one of my favorite Borderlands characters, Tiny Tina. Christopher Sabat, who also voiced Roronoa Zoro from One Piece and Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z, also lends his voice to Battleborn for the roles of Rath and Attikus. Todd Haberkorn, who voiced Shiro Iori in Kill la Kill and Keroro in Sgt. Frog, voices the aforementioned dwarf-like character Boldur. I'd go on, but I think I've made my point.

Every Battleborn also has their own set of Lore Challenges, which are basically achievements that reward the player with dialogue that sheds more light on that character's backstory - and in some instances, a Taunt, too. Lore Challenges can be as easy as "Use X Skill Y times" or as hard as "Complete X mission on Advanced difficulty without dying." Battleborn's world is quite unique and interesting, so the snippets of story can often be worth it (with the exception of Thorn's "The Last" challenge; no lore is worth that). Completing all of a character's Lore Challenges will reward you with an exclusive Skin and a piece of Legendary Gear with a bonus trait that is specific to that character.

Speaking of Gear, one of Battleborn's flaws is its Gear system. At the beginning of any given mode, the player can choose one of their Loadouts which contains up to three pieces of Gear. The player can obtain Gear as random rewards for completing a Story mission or from a Loot Pack, which are bought with the in-game currency, Credits, or from completing certain achievements. Each piece of Gear must be activated mid-match by collecting enough Shards to cover the cost, and doing so will grant the player the effects it holds. These effects are, for the most part, all stat increases like 8% more Skill damage, 11% attack speed, 20% more health, et cetera. Gear has several different tiers of rarity, which affects how powerful its effects are. This is one of the Gear system's biggest problems; good Gear is tied to chance. Often, the players with the best Gear are the ones with the patience to grind for it, which leaves new players or those without as much time at an unfair disadvantage in player-versus-player modes. In addition, Legendary (the highest tier) Gear obtained as random drop from a boss or in a Loot Pack don't have set numbers to their stat boosts, so my Firm Ware Update 1.51c may have better stats than the one someones else obtains, despite it being a chance-based drop from a boss. Up until one of Battleborn's last updates, each piece of Legendary Gear had a set Shard cost on top of random stats, so I could have two of the same Legendary Gear that both cost 1800 Shards despite one having clearly better stats.

A Helix Mutation

Orendi's Lore

Skins & Taunts

A Taunt in Action

Oh Yes, They Went There

Another of Battleborn's not-so-great parts is the player-versus-player mode "Incursion." Well, the concept isn't bad, but the mode has a few hiccups. If you've played a MOBA before, Incursion should be very familiar. Two teams of five are tasked with escorting their minions to the enemy base to attack their Sentry. Rather than the usual three to five "lanes" of other MOBAs, Incursion only has one path for minions to trek down, which makes the action easier to follow. Whoever destroys both of their enemies' two Sentries wins. It may sound simple, but there's more to it than that. Periodically, Shard Clusters will appear that players can collect to not only activate their Gear but also build tactical structures like turrets and healing stations at certain points on the map. Shards can also be used to hire a large MX Elite minion to help gain ground. Similarly, Thralls periodically appear that a player can "hire" by killing it and standing on its summoning pad for a certain amount of time. There are two types of Thralls on every map; Bonecrusher Thralls, who are melee-based and have a summoning pad on both sides of the battlefield near each team's base; and Gunner Thralls, who are, obviously, gun-based, and have one summoning pad situated in the middle of the map that summons two when activated.

Back when I played Battleborn's open beta, this was the mode that sold me on the game. I went in think that killing enemy players was the main goal, but when I actually played the mode and found the Thralls, the MX Elite minions, and the buildable structures, I had realized that this was a game mode where a player can contribute without killing enemy players. As it so happened, the character I gravitated to the most was Orendi, whose role is to kill enemy minions - something that I found both satisfying to do and within my range of skill to pull off; further adding to my belief that I didn't have to kill players to help my team.

Unfortunately, as I said, Incursion has its hiccups. For one thing, Battleborn lacked any sort of player-versus-player tutorial for a long, long time, so players new to the MOBA genre were not be informed of important concepts like proper team structure. Incursion effectively requires each team to have at least one tank, one wave-clear (a character good at killing multiple weak enemies), one assassin, and one support. While each mode does have a short introduction video played before each match that explains the basics, it never mentions team composition - it's also played after character selection, so it'd be too late, anyway. In addition, characters weren't sorted by role until an update later on into the game's life, so it was easy for players to disregard the idea of potential team composition in favor of simply picking the characters they like the most. The game also never mentions that players back to their bases to instantly restore their health and shields, which is a rather important mechanic. Perhaps insult to injury is the fact that the only tutorial that the game ever received only covers the basics of Incursion and doesn't go into detail about team structure, character roles, summoning Thralls, or the abilities of each buildable structure.

What also hurts Incursion is the Battleborn's complete lack of communication tools beyond hooking up a headset. Okay, to say that the game completely lacks communication tools is incorrect. There is a "ping" option that players can utilize to highlight specific enemies or locations for a few seconds, but this feature goes largely ignored by players. Furthermore, it doesn't communicate much more beyond simply pointing. There are no options to ask for healing, or to ask for help claiming Thralls, or to group up. All players get is the simple "ping," which is too vague to be helpful in most circumstances.

Battleborn's perspective also poses some issues that bleed into Incursion. Being a first-person game, new players might be mislead into thinking that the game's online modes are all about kills; they may assume this by association with other online first-person shooters like Battlefield and Counter Strike. The game does little to inform players otherwise, so some players may go into Incursion expecting to rack up kills, get their butts handed to them by players who know better, and walk away from the game as a whole with a bad first impression. I would also argue that while the perspective is immersive, it doesn't mesh well with the gameplay. Across all modes, players will frequently be under assault by attacks that deal damage in an area of effect (or "AoE"), which can be hard to see when the player's view is focused on aiming at an enemy. There is no sort of indicator to tell the player that they are standing in an AoE, so they would have to actively look down to see it. Because of this, a player can end up taking avoidable damage simply because they were too focused on attacking an enemy or healing an ally.

On top of this, Incursion suffers from one tremendous flaw: the snowballing effect. Each team's base has two parts to it, a front and a back, both of which contain a Sentry and various buildable structures such as turrets that can only be built by that team. When a Sentry is killed, all of the buildable structures in that part of the base are destroyed and then become available for anyone to build, not just that team. This is meant to reward the opposing team and make the trek to the far end of the map easier, but in also ends up acting as a huge setback to the defending team and makes pulling off a comeback harder. This is especially so on the map "Overgrowth," which has a fort-like building between each team's two Sentries that the enemy can turn into their own base of sorts by building the healing machine in the center and huddling inside when they need to retreat. At one point, players were even able to remain inside this fort while shooting at the enemy team's Sentry. In tandem with players who like to have expensive, powerful Loadouts and the fact that a team that is doing better will be higher leveled, highly competitive teams can gain arguable too much momentum through the snowballing effect and absolutely crush a casual team with no hopes of recovery.

Meltdown is a bit of a smoother experience, but it certainly isn't perfect, either. In this mode, two teams compete to gain points by leading their minions across the battlefield into a grinder. Each of the different minion types have different point totals, with common minions having lower values and less-frequently spawned minions having higher values. Rather than having one lane like Incursion, Meltdown has two lanes that teams fight for control over; success relies on the ability to maintain dominance over both. When a team reaches 250 points, their grinders move deeper into enemy territory, making their escort path longer. In the past, a team would need to gather an additional 250 (or 500 total) points to win, but a late update reduced this to 150 in an attempt to speed up the mode. This update also added an additional phase called the "Finale," which would take effect once a team has reached the target score. During the Finale, both teams would have to escort one last MX Elite minion to their grinders; two would spawn for both teams, but a team only needs one to reach a grinder to win.

The big problem with the Finale is that it was meant to make comebacks easier, but it changes nothing about the match. The strength of an MX Elite minion is determined by the team's lead. The bigger the lead, the stronger the minion. In addition, the winning team's bots would spawn first, and the losing team's bots would only spawn if the other team's bots were both destroyed. Furthermore, these bots would be immensely powerful even if they were as weak as possible, so destroying just one would be hard enough, let alone both.

At one point, Meltdown was my favorite mode. It's essentially a mode all about killing enemy minions, which is, as I mentioned, is the focus of my favorite role. As you can surmise from the tense, however, it was my favorite mode; it no longer is. Somewhere into the game's life, players started resorting to the same cheep strategy. Rather than splitting into groups as needed to maintain constant control over both lanes, the whole team would move as a unit, acting as a whirlwind of destruction that will kill any player who finds himself alone - which, due to the lack of tutorials to give direction and communication tools to use to call for help, happens very often if your team isn't attempting the same strategy. This is, obviously, more a mark against the player base rather than the game itself, but the fact that the developers offered little to no options to combat this strategy doesn't help the situation.

I'm less familiar with Battleborn's other online modes, but I'll do my best to explain them regardless. First, there is Capture, which is simply about holding specific points on the map for as long as possible. No Sentries, no minions, no Thralls, just straight player-on-player combat. Teams are awarded points over time based on how many of the three points they're holding, The first team to 1000 points wins. Face-Off is somewhat similar, but a bit more objective-focused. Rather than holding points, teams are tasked with collecting Masks from the Varelsi monsters that spawn at various points on the map. From there, the players must take the Masks to the Repository in the middle of the map to score points. Players can steal Masks from their opponents by killing them before they deposit them. Periodically, both teams are teleported to an arena to collectively fight a massive Varelsi monster that frequently drops Masks when taking damage. The first team to 500 points wins. Finally, there is Supercharge, which is very similar to Meltdown, but with a few changes. The biggest difference is that there is a "Supercharger" pad in the center of each map that will strengthen the minions of the team that holds control over it. The target score is the same as Meltdown - 400 - but there is no change in grinder position at 250 points, nor is there a "Finale" phase.

I've played very little of these modes, the reason being due Battleborn's long-standing matchmaking issue. Ever since launch, the game has struggled to match players with opponents of near-equal strength, which made it difficult to get into the game if you weren't already familiar with it. Even then, players who were familiar with the game, like myself, would still get matched with players who were blatantly better at the game, and often be teamed up with completely new players. As a result, the player base of the game declined rather quickly, and queue times for matches became long. Eventually, the queue time issue became so bad the elo system, for what little it was worth, was disabled and all of the game's competitive modes had their queues combined. This, of course, resulted in even more issues with players finding equal opponents and also made it difficult for players to play the mode of their choice, since it came down to majority vote which was, more often than not, for Incursion.

Less-serious players found themselves frequently matched against "premade" teams, which consisted of five experienced players all playing together in a group, often with headsets for a communication advantage. Players begged for a competitive-only or group-only queue, but the player base wasn't big enough to support one without the wait times being unreasonably long - longer than wait times already were for the current queuing system. Tragically, Battleborn found itself caught in a catch 22: in order for the player base to grow, it needed a competitive queue, which it could only have if the player base were bigger. New players were turned away by the way matchmaking would force them to fight overly competitive teams, which made the player base remain too small to solve the issue with a competitive queue.

Thankfully, Battleborn received five DLC story missions known as "Story Operations" that players can enjoy when they've had enough of the competitive modes. Structured similarly to the main story, Story Operations are stand-alone stories that are built to be replayed multiple times. Throughout each mission, players will be given challenges that can be completed to earn "Ops Points," which increase the mission difficulty while also unlocking exclusive skins - and taunts for a few select characters - by completing the mission with a certain point count. At the beginning of each re-playthrough, the player's starting Ops Point count will permanently increase by 5, making it easier to reach higher point counts. In addition, each playthrough will have a slightly different voiced narrative, which helps combat the repetitive nature of attempting to earn the Ops Point rewards.

Story Op Intro

Spaceship Interior

Engine Room

Manufacturing

Demon Bear Landscape

More Demon Bear Visuals

As it so happens, the Story Operation "Toby's Friendship Raid" is the mission that made me fall in love with the Battleborn's visual style. Usually, Sci-Fi games have minimal use of colors, often attempting to look realistic, but Battleborn makes great use of colors. The map for Toby's Friendship Raid takes place inside of a large spaceship; what would otherwise be a sterile-looking, mostly white and grey environment instead has lots of blues and reds. Montana and the Demon Bear, another Story Operation, also has a great example of Battleborn's distinct visual design with it's environment - though, it uses mostly reds and purples in its color scheme. Cities in Sci-Fi games usually aren't too distinct from spaceship interiors and often share the same sterile look to them. The map for Montana and the Demon Bear, however, has lots of Gothic architecture and looks almost fantasy-like. The background also features spooky, Halloween-ready black silhouettes that are contrasted against a purple and red sky, which looks incredible.

In addition to these five DLC missions, Battleborn also debuted five DLC characters: Alani, a water-based healer; Pendles, a sneaky sneaker-wearing snake; Ernest, a bird with a grenade launcher; Kid Ultra, a robotic sidekick healer; and Beatrix (one of my favorite characters), a plague-spreading support sniper. Each Story Operation must be bought with a premium currency, Platinum, and will cost you $5 worth each. The additional characters also cost $5 worth of Platinum, but you can also unlock them with the free currency, Credits - though, that would take much longer than just paying $5 each. I would argue that both the Story Operations and the addition characters are worth that, since each Story Operation has plenty of unlockable rewards and a decent amount of replay value, and each of the five Battleborn are all quite good at filling their roles - some might say too good.

Battleborn, DLC included, get a 4 out of 5. I hate to jump on the "Gearbox killed the game" train, but it really is the truth; the only reason the game failed was because of its developers. When Battleborn became a boat taking on water, Gearbox was bailing with a drink glass. They were very slow to fix any sort of balance issue that cropped up - if they ever got around to fixing them at all - and much needed things like an Incursion tutorial happened long after the damage was done. Of course, they made an excellent game, but they just didn't support it as much as they needed to. Looking on the plus side of Battleborn's demise, the full game is currently available for no more than $10, and the experience is more than worth it. The game is an absolute blast when you're playing through story missions or in the competitive modes with a group full of friends. If the game sounds any interesting, it's technically free-to-play right now (though, it's labeled as a "Free Trial"), allowing you to play the competitive modes for free with six weekly rotating heroes and the ability to permanently unlock a hero via in-game currency; you really have no excuse to not try it out. Who knows? If enough people return to the game, perhaps the game with experience rebirth, or maybe even get a sequel?

(Gameplay screenshots were captured via the PS4's Share Button.)

Box-Art Source - Game Idealist: https://gameidealist.com/news/updated-box-art-revealed-for-gearbox-softwares-battleborn/