Battleborn Open Beta Review

More Please! A MOBA-licous Delight

10 min readApr 24, 2016

A new challenger has entered the MOBA arena looking to etch it’s name on the highscore board. Gearbox Software, known for the amazing Borderlands series, kept serious notes on just what we love as gamers and has created a smash hit with Battleborn. Battleborn’s Open Beta may have just ended on April 18th, but visions of bursting shards, whirl-winding swords, dismantled minions, and healing mushrooms continue to flow across my mind. I know I only have to wait until May 3rd to continue my star saving campaign, but I want it now! I’m used to beta experiences chalked full of glitches, connection issues, and unbalanced characters, but Battleborn swims against the currents of neglect only to become a wave of digital satisfaction. With endless options, stunning visuals, and smooth gameplay Battleborn will surely be a nationwide beach party everyone can enjoy.

Taunts can be used mid-game, but leave you vulnerable

Gameplay:

Mellka is a fun a quick character to master.

After signing in and a short wait in the beta queue, I immediately jumped into a multiplayer match to familiarize myself with game controls. This presented a welcome puzzle: with so many characters to choose from, just how different will each character be to control? I initially thought I would have to practice controlling each character over and over again, but was pleasantly surprised that was not the case. All characters controls follow a common button layout. Like most first person shooters, players aim using the Right Stick and move around using the Left Stick. You can quicken your step by clicking the LS to dash, and lunge over objects using “X”.

These controls were synonymous across all characters I tried out, but there are variations to each character’s base stats. Characters are ranked on a 1–5 scale for health, power, range, and speed. A giant heavy hitter like Montana (taunting above) may feel sluggish compared to the venom-acrobatic Mellka (pictured above), but he can absorb way more enemy fire. It’s trade offs like these that help make all characters feel well balanced. Granted, I did not get the chance to try every character, but let’s hope that Gearbox paid attention throughout the beta and has fixes in the works for any over-powered characters.

Colossal differences between characters can be found in their attacks and abilities. All vary from character to character; a button for one character may be an attack, but for another it acts as a zoom. Abilities and attacks are used as followed:

L1 uses Skill 1

L2 uses Character Talent

R1 uses Skill 2

R2 uses Primary Attack

Circle (O) uses Melee attack

Triangle uses Ultimate Ability

I found that the inclusion of 25 different characters, there was fun in the mystery of trying another build. As players defeat enemies experience is gained, levels achieved, and new abilities unlocked. The level cap may seem tiny with a maximum of 10, but with each new level achieved players literally alter their own DNA with augments. Pressing “UP” on the D-pad after every level up will display the Helix menu, here players choose between two augments that lie on opposite sides of your own torn DNA helix. Selecting one will write the augment into the DNA code, altering abilities in all sorts of surprising ways.

A character I found amazingly useful was ninja-healer fungus Miko. His abilities consist of a healing burst called Biosynthesis, a poison grenade called Cloud of Spores, a throwable healing mushroom with a wide area of effect called Fungus Among Us (video demonstration below), and kick-ass ninja kunais for primary attacks. With augmentation Miko becomes a must in tough battles. Augments can make Biosynthesis heal nearby allies along with you, give Cloud of Spores a chance of slowing the enemy, make Fungus Among Us’s area of effect range insanely big, and even poison the tips of your kunais. These changes not tickling your fancy? Well there is always to opposite end of the gene pool to play with.

Mushrooms have a long history of hero-aiding in video games.

Design:

Selecting my gear loadout with unlocked character Isic.

I’ve never been much of a MOBA fan; the idea of starting at level one every new match tends to leave my progression-orientated heart unfulfilled, but I do appreciate experimentation in gameplay design. I can understand the competitive multiplayer appeal of MOBAs, with each player starting off on equal footing there is more focus on player skill. Battleborn appeals to a wide range of player types which makes the game fun, but doesn’t provide enough variation in online multiplayer arena play.

Battleborn splits itself in two, giving players two main ways to play: story and versus. Either can be selected right away and can be restricted to private games as well as public games. Even though core gameplay stays the same, there are many big differences between the two. In both modes, players can pick up orange crystal by running over little clusters and blasting apart giant ones. Crystals act as in game currency and can be spent on spawning minions, on upgrading offensive and defensive machines, and used for activating certain types of gear items. Gear items are acquired by opening out of game loot packs, and provide various boosts like more primary weapon damage or increased shield durability. Loot packs can be awarded after successful story missions and multiplayer matches, through various challenges, or purchased using credits. Credits are also earned in the same way as loot packs. As you can tell it didn’t take long before I was basking in a fountain of loot.

Storymode Design:

Only two missions were available, but I believe there was enough content to get a feel of how story mode will work. Players are matched in teams of five and sent on various missions to thwart the evil Varelsi, a sinister organization with plans to capture the galaxy’s last sun. Exploring the story maps while completing one objective after another was incredibly entertaining, even more so since I’m a huge Borderlands fan. Activate the machine, slay the mini-boss, light the fires, protect this, save that…. whatever ordeals tax your way, all story missions end with titanic boss fights. The two bosses I faced through story mode couldn’t have been more different and entertaining. You can check out the Conservator boss battle below for an example of how fun they can be as well as check out vampire-swordmaster Rath’s sweet moves.

You still must hack and slash apart waves of enemies, and soon will become accustomed to spamming your abilities over and over, but battles wont test your patience. Just like multiplayer, you start at level one for every story mission, but with enemies everywhere leveling comes quick. After completing story missions, players will receive credits to spend on loot packs and experience in two separate categories: Command Rank and Character Rank. All experience gained overall goes towards your Command Rank. Climbing higher in Command Rank will unlock new loot packs for purchase, new characters, new emblems, and new badges. Providing an even more tailored experience, those same characters can instead be unlocked by completing corresponding challenges. Each and every character has it’s own Character Rank. Playing your favorite character is very rewarding; increasing Character Rank rewards players with new taunts, player skins, and most importantly third augments for rungs in your Helix ladder.

Multiplayer Design:

Multiplayer matches deliver rewards in the same way as story missions, but winning takes much more effort. I had to stockpile a great deal more crystals in multiplayer modes to ensure my minions, turrets, and amplifiers were constantly respawned and sufficiently upgraded to combat relentless player advancement. Leveling up fast is important, your adversaries aren’t weaklings and grow stronger every passing minute. The last thing you want is to be under-leveled towards the end of a match, so take the time to destroy an enemy minion mob or two. Make to sure strategically annihilate fellow multiplayers, allowing them to run away and recharge their shields is just wasted effort.

There are three multiplayer game types to play, but only two were available during the beta: Incursion and Meltdown. Incursion tasks players with destroying two enemy sentry bots positioned within enemy territory while simultaneously protecting your own. Here is a video of us taking down the final sentry:

Oscar Mike is one of my favorites!

Minions make their way down a single main lane of attack through the middle of the map, and are essential to lowering the shields of the enemy sentry bot. If minions aren’t doing well enough, a few minutes into the match mercenary camps spring to life along the perimeter of the map. After defeating foes at these locations, players can sign a contract with the fallen foes and they’ll rush into battle for you. Mercenaries are like super charged minions, and often fill the gap in battlefield holes. Below is a video showing just how this works:

In Meltdown mode players must escort minions to sacrificial totems, and the game is over once (if I remember correctly) 500 minions reach the flames. I didn’t enjoy this mode so much, but not because of the game type. Other players often missed the overall purpose of the mode and focused too little on minion escorting, which resulting in many, many defeats for me even if I played well:

The third multiplayer mode is called Capture, and is supposed to play more like a traditional MOBA. Players will have to capture and guard locations placed on the map, doing so long enough ensures the victory. I hope more modes are released throughout Battleborn’s lifespan, but as of now the selection is surprisingly limited for a game with so many other vast options.

Presentation:

Battleborn is cell-shading at its best. I may be wrong with calling it cell-shaded, but graphics are undoubtedly smooth and clean. Environments are elaborately designed with metallic structures, vibrant alien plant life, glowing mountain passes, and snowed out construction equipment. Let your eyes wander and you’ll catch yourself staring in awe at gorgeous landscapes as far as the eye can see. Some items do seem flat like various water effects and plants, but the leaves room for improvement on the official release.

Character designs are hilarious and colorful mash-ups of everything science fiction fans love. With characters ranging from a floating astral sword-woman, a demon-possessed street punk, a bow weilding elfling, a four-armed space witch, a gun toting marine-eagle, and a penguin in a mech suit there is bound to be a character you’ll fall in love with. Something I really enjoyed as a long time gamer, was the use of 2D effects alongside 3D effects. Using multiple characters, I noticed the animation for certain attacks would manifest as 2D cartoon effects or digital read outs. Mixing those effects alongside 3D explosions and mechanical owls displays a delightful show of playful animation.

Mini-bosses and bosses are presented in classic Borderlands style: witty often laughable dialogue followed by a slow motion shot of the creature with it’s name displayed. I’m glad Gearbox kept their style from game to game, presenting foes in this style keeps the game pumping with energy. From what I experienced, Gearbox also ushered their famous Borderlands sense of humor into Battleborn as well. The writing and scripting is tasteful and leaves the player never knowing what to expect. I found my time facing Arachnis gut wrenching:

I AM THE SPIDER KING!

Conclusion:

As a gamer not previously interested in MOBAs, it was surprising to find out just how much I was enamored with Battleborn. Graphics, gameplay, sound, story, and character design are executed cleanly; a great deal of time and effort was put into almost every aspect of the game. I do hope more multiplayer modes are released, and a few more story mission wouldn’t hurt as well. I fear that even with the incredible amount of characters and even greater amount of ways to play them, that the lack of game content will cause things to feels to repetitious. Sure I don’t mind replaying story levels with new characters, but the is no way I want to play each one 25 times over. It may be a little too late to ask for multiple paths to completing missions, or even more physical lanes in multiplayer maps, but these are issues that will come up.

I thought this fight would never end.

Boss battles like the one above against the Galatic Emperor is just one reason why I can ignore many of my own complaints. Furthermore, the list of characters I didn’t get to use is a long one, and that’s a yearning I must appease. With third augments needing unlocking, there is still strategies on characters I did play left undiscovered, and a bunch awesome skins and taunts as well. I guess it’s apparent Battleborn has made a fan out of me, and it’s not even out yet. One thing is for certain, I can’t wait to see how bad-ass Toby is!