Battleborn is an online first person shooter game developed by Gearbox Software (known for their Borderlands series) and published by 2k Games. It’s available on PC, PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One. Players have the choice to play both a single player campaign and with the multiplayer side if things. The campaign is fairly short, with the focus of Battleborn being on the multiplayer.
I’ve spent quite a long time with Battleborn in both the single player and with the multiplayer side of things and while the game does have a certain comedic element and a fun cartoon art style, I can’t really see where the part is that makes this game great. Sure I have many characters to choose from, who all have varying personalities and abilities and I can choose to play with the style that suits me best, but even with all this, I found myself to be incredibly bored with Battleborn, I just couldn’t find the games charm.
The single player campaign sees you placed in a level either by yourself if you chose to go it alone, or with an online buddy if you chose that option. You will face waves and waves of enemies, a boss, then more waves, then possibly another boss and then maybe again more waves, then the level is over. Your character will gain experience throughout each chapter in the campaign and you’ll be able to upgrade your special abilities as you go, which helps you to kill all the enemies that keep coming at you.
They’re fairly long levels that aren’t really so challenging, but are repetitive. Besting an enemy was always just shooting them, or using your special abilities and it seemed to me to be just a matter of draining their health bars until they’re dead. Some had special areas that were weakspots and other areas on certain enemies that made them immune from some attacks, but even so, there wasn’t much of a challenge, particularly if you’re online with someone else, if you’re by yourself thing are a bit more difficult though, particularly with certain characters.
In terms of the story, it’s basically the end of the universe and it’s up to the characters in the game to stop this from happening, It’s not the first time I’ve heard a story like this, but I wish there was something more interesting out of it all. The game has this funny/cartoon/childish tone to it and I can’t help but think the intended audience is a far younger demographic than people in their 20’s and above so maybe this game just isn’t for me. I could see a lot of gamers maybe in their early teens enjoying this game, but the older you are, maybe the less it’ll appeal to you.
One thing that I did like though was the cool animated cutscenes that appeared when the game first starts and also occasionally throughout the story. These are very well done and seem to be a bit more serious and more “badass” then what the game actually is when you play it. The animated custscenes really were the highlight of the game for me.
The multiplayer component is where a bit more of the fun is with Battleborn. There are three game modes to choose from, these include incursion, capture and meltdown. Incursion will see two teams defend their bases from waves of minions, while trying to take down each opposing teams bases. Capture will see two teams try to capture and hold certain areas of the map, while also defending these areas of the map from the opposing team in the game. Meltdown will see the two teams escort the minions to a point on a map and points are gained for every minion that goes into that area.
The three game modes will keep you busy and the game time with each of them is fairly long. They are much more fun if you can get a bunch of friends that you know to come on the play with you. But if you’re by yourself as I was for the most part it may get a little boring, or at least it did for me. I found the experience to be about the same every time I went into one and I never really had any moments where I could say I was super impressed by what happened or proud of myself for getting something done. It’s not like playing online in Battlefield 4 or like League Of Legends, it’s a different experience from these two and really I would rather play one of those games over Battleborn. I had a lot more fun with the multiplayer in Uncharted 4 than I did with my time with the Battleborn multiplayer. There’s a lot of multiplayer games out there and a lot of first person shooter multiplayer games, Battleborn is okay, but I wouldn’t consider it to be one of the greats.
The music is something that I really liked. In the animated cutscenes the music was very well done and I know I’m repeating myself but I really did love the animated cutscenes! But in certain areas of the game, the music seemed to be completely non existent at times. I just finished playing one of the multiplayer matches in the capture game mode just before I wrote this review and I noticed there wasn’t any music playing at all during it. It could have really added a lot of the fun tone of the game, it’s just so quiet at times, there’s many sections of the game like that, I didn’t really get it.
Battleborn is an okay game and there are some parts of it that I love, such as the cutscense and the wide variety of playable characters and play styles. But for some reason the game feels like it’s missing something really big, its plot isn’t that great and the multiplayer modes felt repetitive. I didn’t feel that I had any great moments with this one. The tone and the art styles seems to me to be something that would appeal to the younger gamers out there, particularly those in their early teens. But for older gamers, unless you have friends to play with you while you play, I just can’t see the appeal. Sure there’ll be some out there that love what they get from the Battleborn experience, I just can’t see it it myself though, I wish that I could.
