BattleBorn – E3 First Look

Today we had a chance to see and play BattleBorn the newest multiplayer FPS from Gearbox makers of Borderlands.  The good news is a lot of the frantic gameplay and fantastic humor from the borderlands series has carried over into something that could be one of the biggest FPS battle/MOBA games this holiday season.  “Welcome to the end of the Universe” is the tag line used to introduce us to the world of BattleBorn.  After centuries of out running the apocalypses multiple races and species have converged on the last remaining solar system.  Here is our stage for the final fight of existence as we know it.

With a roster of 25 vastly different characters there is a “BadAss for everyone”.  From heavy hitting melee fighters to precision snipers and everything in between BattleBorn will most likely have a character who fits your play style perfectly.

While competitive mulitplayer was mentioned, our demo today primarily focused on the story mode which allowed up to 5 players to take on huge maps with changing objectives. During our mission Eric and I (Jason) chose to play as Caldarius and Rath both from the Jennerit species.  While I focused on Melee DPS Eric was able to support me with his constant cover fire and offensive tactics.

Team work is essential as even the smallest of enemies can take down a player without help from a friend.  Our mission took place on an icy planet and our mission was to take over a base and attempt to over throw an enemy strong point, over the course of completing basic objectives and fighting off hoards of enemies we had 3 different major boss battles.   While the combat was more than frantic some of the melee attacks end up putting you in more harm than good and the basic long range attack (at least for our pair) was very lacking in “oopf”.  Thankfully there was a very large skill tree available for each character and rather than focus on a single type or play style each level earned gives you an “either or” choice on how you wish to upgrade your character ie more DPS or faster cool downs.

BattleBorn was esily my favorite game seen today.  I still remain nervous about the storyline as I hope it does not become another Titanfall or Brink fiasco where your only option is to play the same “arenas” over and over again.  I also am VERY interested to see how the multiplayer aspect turns out, if BattleBorn allows 25 VS 25 full on battles with each of the characters this could easily be the ultimate in FPS multiplayer games this year.

BattleBorn is coming out this Holiday season for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.  Be sure to check back with us at that time for more information and of course our review once IBeatItFirst.