Battleborn Beta Impressions

Battleborn is one of the many MOBA titles releasing in the next bit and I've been very cautious in seeing which ones have the best potential. This open beta was a great chance for me to take a look at Battleborn which is from Gearbox, the creators of Borderlands and it generally feels very similar to that which is great. The beta gives players a look at both the competitive multiplayer options and a brief viewing of the campaign. I chose to only check out the multiplayer aspects of the game as not to be spoiled and to enjoy the campaign all at once. So from this point I'll just be discussing the multiplayer aspects which are split into two game modes called Meltdown and Incursion. Each of the game modes has one map for the beta with both looking great and providing a solid display of what other potential levels play like. In Meltdown you guide a series of minion bots across the battlefield into incinerators to slowly progress against the enemy. This was my favorite mode to play as I found the balance of guidance while battling against other players was great. The second mode is Incursion where the goal is to destroy two of the enemy spider drones before they destroy yours. This seemed like it was more of a battle where players battle each other and the spider drones get killed on the side.





The beta also featured a host of characters which I played a couple matches with a bunch of them in order to get a feeling of their abilities though did settle on Thorn (the archer) as my favorite. She's one of the characters that lacks a shield and is fairly weak at close proximity, but can pack a real punch at a distance. I also tried out Mike (healer mushroom with knives) and Rath (Double sword spinning melee guy). There was a limited selection for the beta so those were the ones I decided to try out and I eventually settled on just playing as Thorn for the rest of my beta matches. The characters start out with basic strengths and through leveling within the match pick a number of abilities which are displayed in twos that at each level make your chosen hero much more badass. The game itself does an incredible job of taking the MOBA concept, mashing FPS action into the mix and making this work perfectly. I typically dislike MOBAs due to how slow they are and the length matches tend to take. In Battleborn matches are at max thirty minutes though most last 20-25 minutes which is perfect and go by quick. I was happily surprised with how tense combat felt and how the time just seemed to fly by as I ran about engaging enemy troops. There's actually a ton to do aside from working in your five man squad to control positions, you'll also need to build turrets and take out minions depending on the mode. The levels and environments were beautiful feeling well balanced, I'm eager to see what the other levels look like in the game. At this point I was pleasantly surprised by Battleborn and will definitely be watching this one closely.

Impressions Made on Battleborn during the Beta