Battleborn: Fun with its share of kinks

The game, though engaging, fails to follow in Borderlands' footsteps

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I am a big fan of the Borderlands series, so when Gearbox Software announced Battleborn, my excitement had no bounds.

Developed by Gearbox and published by 2K Games, Battleborn is a first-person shooter with elements of a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA). It has 25 playable characters, each with a different sense of humour and of course different skills and weaponry.

Once installed, the game takes you to a lobby, wherein you can choose the mode you want to play. Just like Borderlands, you can play a single-player campaign or join a friend in the co-op mode. The MOBA mode is an addition. One, however, needs to complete the Prologue to unlock other modes, including the campaign.

The story is set in space, where an apocalyptic event has wiped off most planets and stars in the universe except one. Every species has fled to that star and have taken up arms together to fight against Varelsi, the reason for the catastrophe.

The gameplay is engaging and intense enough. The fights are interesting but not as great compared with Borderlands. Objectives are fairly simple and sometimes too boring and repetitive - I was tired of escorting and protecting characters from enemy waves. The combat is similar to Destiny and the likes but Battleborn has gone down a different path by bringing in MOBA elements. The closest MOBA I'd compare it to is Smite. So the ardent followers of Smite, League of Legends and Defense of the Ancients, might find the multiplayer mode of Battleborn very addictive. Just like in any MOBA, players in Battleborn start at Level 1 for every match and level up by earning XP as the game progresses. The more XP you have, the better abilities you'd be able to purchase.

Borderlands' story was great, laced with humour and impressive weaponry and was enough to satiate you even without any add-ons. Battleborn, however, was a disappointment. Apart from the prologue, there are just eight missions to play through. Each mission takes about 30 minutes or so and the story is not engaging enough to leave you feeling content. Same goes for the multiplayer mode - there are three multiplayer modes with two maps each. Unlike games such as Skyrim, Witcher 3 or even Gearbox's Borderlands series where players pour in hours at one go, Battleborn doesn't give you enough reasons to replay it.

Battleborn is an online game which means if you don't have an internet connection, don't bother buying this as there is no offline mode. This is where I almost quit in rage. During my first run-through, I was playing the Prologue and my labrador found it almost essential to knock down the router with his tail every time I came close to completing the mission. After reconnecting, I was back in the lobby and had to play the Prologue all over again.

In short, Battleborn can't compete with the riveting experience that Borderlands enchanted gamers with. It is without doubt fun with great shooting mechanics and characters, but with issues such as network connection and a weak storyline, Gearbox should start working on patches or better yet start developing Borderlands 3.