With Battleborn being a hero shooter in open beta for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. How does the hero shooter play? An impression from the beta.
Since April 13, it is finally here: Battleborn is now open to the public on PC. The developers of the Borderlands series have put in a lot of effort and are sending a wide and very varied roster of heroes into the race for the hearts of buyers. You won’t be alone: direct competitors like Overwatch by Blizzard or Paladins by Hi-Rez all want a piece of the pie in the mob shooter genre.
More on this topic: Overwatch vs. Battleborn vs. Paladins? The new hero shooters compared
The roster of heroes: From the four-armed girl to the French gentleman robot
Who has not always wanted to see what happens when you put a little penguin into a battle robot? Or how a sword-swinging space ronin plays?
Battleborn covers a large part of the general madness with its 25 heroes. From the crazy professor to the eagle with a jetpack, everything can be found that you’ve never seen in Borderlands because it was too over-the-top. Or as a friend aptly put it yesterday: “The developers thought that people had gotten so used to Borderlands that they could push it even further.”
The PVP modes: A big bucket of MOBA and a pinch of first-person shooter
In the open beta, you can choose between the mode “Heist” and “Meltdown.” The former also leads to the map “Overgrown” where the goal is to take out the two opposing spider druids and protect your own.
In this, minions and mercenaries support you, which you need to defeat so that they fight for you. Heroes of the Storm greets you. Additionally, you can build and upgrade turrets at fixed points for crystals you collect throughout the map. It is also possible to summon especially strong minions or build support towers. However, due to the sheer number of units, things can quickly become chaotic on the screen.
In the latter mode, the goal is to escort your minions to a smelting furnace. At the destination, the robots plunge into the flames and are turned into scrap metal. The team that gathers a certain amount first wins the match.
Every hero is unique, every player is responsible for themselves
During a match (in PVP or PVE), your character levels up and you unlock new talents that modify existing abilities or your equipment. Additionally, at level 5 you gain access to your ultimate ability. When using abilities, just pay attention to the cooldowns, as there is no mana. Each hero plays completely differently.
Some rely on “normal” equipment like rifles or pistols and must reload their weapons. Others use swords, magic, or rely on sophisticated technology.
Since everyone in the team is responsible for themselves, it can happen that the levels of the individual heroes on the team are different. I like the experience point pool of Heroes of the Storm much better. A little communism is not so bad sometimes.
The missions: 30 – 50 minutes of pure screen chaos
In addition to the normal PVP modes, Battleborn also features the option to team up with up to four other players in story-driven episodes against waves of enemies. Each episode has its own little story to tell. Even special treasure chests sometimes drop from enemies that may contain rare gear. You can combine these into sets of up to three items, enhancing your characters with increased reload speed, health regeneration, or similar perks.
Battleborn fully embraces the popular (or hated) humor from the Borderlands series. Everything is very bright and exaggerated, the characters all have their quirks, and each boss is typically introduced by a short video. Unfortunately, the funny text additions are missing. We only learn the name of the boss.
From Borderlands: Beautiful information snippets like with Nine-Toes (He has 9 toes and 3 eggs) are unfortunately missing.
I grabbed a friend just in time for the beta’s start, and together, supported by three other players, we tackled the two episodes that are playable in the open beta. In the first mission, “The Algorithm,” the group faced a powerful AI. Therefore, the opposing hordes consisted entirely of robots. First doubts about the variety of enemies arose, as both of us felt very reminded of the hordes of robots from Borderlands 2.
During the roughly 45 minutes we needed for the episode, we had to face several bosses. And I’m not exaggerating when I say that I was really positively surprised by the boss mechanics and the layout of the map.
At the beginning, we started in an industrial complex, then went outside into the icy cold full of snow, and finally entered an ancient temple full of lava. And all of that in just 30 minutes. Definitely the more varied of the two episodes. For the final battle, we even found ourselves in a huge, blue hall, where we had to defeat a giant, four-legged robot.
The second episode called “Edge of Oblivion,” on the other hand, threw two other kinds of enemies at us. First, we fought against hordes of gray-skinned beasts. Later, we faced black phantoms that clearly originated from another spatial dimension. During the mission, we had to protect a giant robot and escort it to its destination. Towards the end, we faced a skyscraper-sized boss that even teleported us to another dimension during the battle.
Those who enjoyed the missions and boss fights of the Borderlands series will find everything here in compressed form, and it is wonderful. You just have to get used to the sheer volume of effects. Right from the start, I was nearly overwhelmed by the explosions and light effects.
What ultimately remains to be said about the open beta of Battleborn?
Battleborn really surprised me positively during the open beta. I didn’t expect much from the MOBA shooter, and my expectations were accordingly low. The episodes (there are said to be 9 in the finished game) amazed me during my first playthrough. In comparison with Destiny, when it came out, these missions are leagues better.
The bosses are not just boring sponges that soak up too many bullets, and the environment is much more varied.
Even the PVP mode plays fun. Where I spent most time was in the mode “Heist.” This one reminds me a lot of Heroes of the Storm in its setup, and I like that.
However, there is a catch: €50 is personally too much for a game that has over 9 episodes, several multiplayer maps, and 25 heroes. But I can truly only recommend that everyone checks out Battleborn by April 18.
If you are interested in first-person shooters or MOBAs and enjoyed the strikes from Destiny, you’ll have a lot of fun. Best with a companion.
This report from the beta of Battleborn comes from our reader Lucas Kaczynski.
If you are now tempted to play a round of Battleborn, this article has everything you need to sign up for the open beta!
