Battleborn’s multiplayer online battle arenas take a backseat during our time with the genre mash-up’s story-driven co-op missions. By Matt Cabral
Given all the buzz about Battleborn being a MOBA-inspired shooter from the studio that brought us Borderlands, we were as surprised as anyone when our extended hands-on session didn't plop us into a five-vs-five arena match, but had us tackling a rich, objective-driven story mission. As Orendi, a Chaos Witch that Gearbox software creative director Randy Varnell enthusiastically describes as a "wild channeler of chaotic and shadowy energies", we're tasked with escorting a bomb-strapped sentry bot to an enemy spawning portal. Our ambitious plan is ultimately thwarted by a screen-swallowing Golum... but we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves.
Before deep diving into the details of our demo, we should bring you up to speed. Between the early MOBA comparisons, the now-apparent focus on narratively rich missions, and the addition of a multi-limbed witch (did we mention Orendi spits death from four arms?), you could be excused for not knowing exactly what sort of beast Battleborn actually is.
Thankfully, Varnell is happy to break down what Gearbox's new baby is all about. "We use the term 'hero shooter', but really the best way i can describe it is an action-based first-person shooter with a huge cast of playable characters," he says. "It's also kind of a genre fusion." Varnell draws parallels with Gearbox's Borderlands series, which was similarly difficult to neatly categorize. "Battleborn's got that FPS/RPG blend, it's got some fighting game in it, it's got some MOBA, its got some FPS objective-based play, and it's got great team deathmatch-type elements in it. It kind of fuses together and has some familiar components and some familiar smells in it, but it's a new stew. it's a new meal that we've made."
Hungry for more
A hearty helping of Battleborn also brings a beefy cast of playable heroes. 25, to be exact. Folded into five factions - The Last Light Consortium, Peacekeepers, Jennerit, Eldrid, and Rogue - the characters can be played solo or co-operatively in the story missions, or unleashed for some multiplayer mayhem in the three competitive modes. More than mere class-based clones with big hand-cannons, though, each character - according to Varnell - is a fully fleshed-out protagonist capable of tackling the story alone. "These are all fully rendered, first-person playable characters that are animated to the same quality... probably even higher in some ways. that we achieved in Borderlands. We treat each one as a main character from their own game; they all have stories and backgrounds, and you're going to learn how these weird and wild and wonderful beings have kind of formed together and kind of Alamo-ed up."
Varnell's comparison to Texas' most famous stand-off refers to the necessity of Battleborn's disparate and desperate heroes to band together despite their differences. Their common enemy, the Varelsi, are a nasty sort that have decided darkening every star in the galaxy is a good idea. We find our ragtag group at the end of the universe, on the edge of extinction, and determined to protect the very last star in existence before the evildoers can snuff it out. For players, this means strapping on the boots of one of the over two dozen heroes and teaching the Varelsi some manners over a series of content-packed missions.
Saving the universe, though, will be a very unique experience largely dependent on which character you choose. As Varnell explains, each plays very differently. "We've got guys with guns; we've got guys with swords. We have bows; we've got axes; we've got magic. We've got a lot of different ways to move and traverse the battlefield."
Base abilities, weapons, and powers, however, barely scratch the surface of what Battleborn's varied badasses have in their arsenals. On top of sporting a primary, secondary, and melee attack, they possess a pair of skills, mapped to the left and right bumpers, and a Y button-assigned 'ultimate ability'. This latter trio of table-turners work off individual cooldown meters, so managing them - as well as health and shield meters - quickly becomes as integral as ensuring the towering enemy before you doesn't use your puny spine like a length of dental floss.
Level headed
Wanderers of Pandora's wasteland, as well as shooter fans in general, will find both the solid mechanics and intuitive UI comfortably familiar. The same goes for Battleborn's Helix leveling system, a character progression feature that works similar to Borderlands'... if it were cranked up on a Red Bull bender. Unlike its predecessor's slow but satisfying character growth, Battleborn adopts a rapid-fire approach that sees players skyrocketing from level one to ten over the course of a single mission or multiplayer match, and then completely resetting at the start of each.
Varnell offers a slightly more savory explanation of the MOBA-flavored feature: "We added a little bit of that RPG mix to the broth to make that great stew of ours. But we've simplified some of the formula to be sure it's still a shooter, an action game. we have these elements mixed in with this great adaptability and customization."
On top of packing a visceral sense of immediate gratification, the level-ratcheting Helix system brings a malleable strategic layer. "in Borderlands, sometimes you made a choice and it took you a while to face an enemy that really let you use that ability; in Battleborn, you're making that choice live. You're really tuning to not only your play style and your preferences, but to what you need to do to adapt to the game at the moment. You really get to feel the power of making those choices."
The leveling points come fast and furious, so you'll never go too long without picking a new perk or enhancement. The system is broken into two separate paths, each following a specific focus. in the case of our wicked witch, we could apply a point to either her Chaos or Restraint paths with each level. The former includes enemy-scorching choices such as Fire Walk with Me, which adds a flaming trail to her energy burst, while the latter offers up slightly more passive selections such as Oh That Reminds Me, which recharges Orendi's shield after firing said bursts.
While Varnell trumpets the system's addictive immediacy and 'easy to learn, hard to master' variety, he and his team understand players also appreciate the rewards that come with building and refining a character over the long haul. On the finer details, he remains as secretive as a Varelsi spy, but offers this tease for those craving a bit more permanence to their character progression. "I'm not going to tell you all the details, but the more you play a single character you can rank them up. There are going to be some additional gameplay options you'll unlock as you rank them up." Whether this means banking favorite character 'builds' or something more meta remains to be seen, but we're happy to continue rinsing and respecing at a breakneck pace until we learn more.
Back to the battlefield
Which brings us back to Orendi and her galaxy-saving suicide mission. Dubbed To the Edge of the Void, it's just one in a series of story-fueled chapters that Varnell describes as "TV-like episodes designed to have a satisfying beginning, middle and end, with some replayability baked in". Unfolding on a snowy planet that serves as home base to the Peacekeeper faction, the mission sees Orendi and her four co-op cohorts overrun by the Varelsi. The inky-black foes come in a variety of frightening forms, such as Thralls, which Varnell says are "biogenetically engineered mutant warriors that serve as the game's orc-like grunt forces".
While the alien uglies seemingly spill from all directions, they're not much of a match for Orendi's relentless mix of light and heavy attacks. With the former, we're able to rapid-fire chaos bolts from one of her hands, while the latter unleashes the lethal energy strikes simultaneously from all 16 of her fingertips. Both also receive a nice visual complement courtesy of the Chaos Witch's razor-sharp, black-painted nails. Of course, her menacing manicure is nothing compared to the rolling eyeballs that creepily peer out from her quartet of palms. Hey, we say if silver hair can be fashionable, then who's to judge the eye-palm look?
With the base's supply depot now populated by Thrall corpses, we rendezvous with that aforementioned sentry. Outfitted with enough boomstick to blow the Death Star to smithereens, the spidery bot pushes toward the Varelsi-channeling portal. Charged with protecting this lumbering suicide bomb until it reaches its target, we're faced with new waves of party-crashers that make the initial threats look like grade-school bullies. Among the continuing onslaught of Thrall and other minions, we meet Warlord Nix and The Conservator, boss baddies whose daunting size is matched only by the intimidating length of their health bars.
Nix, who emerges from a sky-darkening ship before unleashing lethal projectiles, is a bit of a bullet sponge. Realizing we might need more firepower, we shelve Orendi's standard bolts in favor of her Nullify skill, an area-of-effect attack that knocks us back to safety even as it strips a sizeable chunk of life from Nix's life meter. While waiting for Nullify to recharge, we turn to Orendi's second cooldown skill, Shadowfire Pillar. A trap-like ability that more than lives up to its name, the skill first targets an enemy within a ring of death, then obliterates them with a bursting column of energy.
Before we can get too comfortable behind Orendi's powerful witchcraft, The Conservator cuts in. Sporting snaking tentacles and the ability to spawn more enemies into the mix via massive portals, the floating big bad brings what Varnell casually refers to as an "escalated fight". This understated description is thankfully tempered by the introduction of a spectacle called the Paradigm Shift, Orendi's third and aptly named 'ultimate' skill. The screen-clearing attack is a bit like Shadowfire Pillar... if it were turned on its side and shot a straight surge of channeled energy capable of obliterating everything in its path. Accompanied by a creepy-cool animation of Orendi's four conjuring hands, the spell - along with lots of help from our four co-op friends and their ultimate skills - eventually fells The Conservator.
Skills to spare
Of course, some credit also goes to the leveling system, that constant, character-growing companion that allowed us to upgrade multiple times over the course of a partial mission. In addition to the aforementioned augmentations, 18 other perks do everything from upping damage and adding status effects to increasing healing abilities and reducing cooldown timers. Some of our slicker selections included I Hate your Pretty Shields, which enables Orendi's Nullify skill to penetrate enemy defenses, and Power Pillar, which gives her five seconds to cast a second, half-as-powerful Shadowfire Pillar after conjuring the first. And let's not forget Burned and Busted, a sneaky little skill upgrade that reveals stealthy baddies upon the deadly column's eruption from the dirt.
With thumbs blistered and breath finally exhaled, we're afforded little time to bask in the glory of our success. As it turns out, we've barely completed half the mission and a towering Golum still stands between us and the portal we must destroy. Saving the universe must wait, however, as the angry beast puts an end to us and, with that, our demo.
Our patient wait for Battleborn's arrival will be paid off, however, by the promise of finally facing that end-boss not only as Orendi, but as 2A other heroes - each with stories to tell, skills to upgrade, and stars to save.