Battleborn Multiplayer Hands-On Preview

After a great run with the Borderlands series, Gearbox Software has turned its attention to a new franchise, Battleborn. Like Borderlands, Battleborn is set on an alien world in the distant future. The universe is going dark, and the remaining surviving races have sent their champions, the Battleborn, to the last star, Solus, for a final confrontation against the mysterious enemy behind the disaster. These champions comprise the 25 playable characters in the game, each of which comes with their own set of unique weapons and powers. The game has a story mode in which you can play as these characters solo or in co-op, but this preview will focus on the multiplayer, and specifically the Capture and Meltdown modes that I was given the opportunity to enjoy some hands-on time with. But first, let's have a little look at those characters, 15 of which have been revealed to date and were playable at the hands-on preview event that I attended.

The characters each fall into one of three general classes: Attacker, Defender, and Supporter. At a high level, you can think of an Attacker as a DPS character, a Defender as a tank, and a Supporter as, well, a support character with healing and buff powers. Each character is rated on a one to five scale in Health, Range, Power, and Speed, and as you can probably guess, Attackers tend to be rated higher in Speed and Power, Defenders in Health and Power, and Supporters low in Health.

Each character also has a unique weapon, and it may be surprising to hear that not all of these weapons are ranged. There are indeed characters that bring a knife to a gun fight, but in spite of this apparent disadvantage you shouldn't underestimate the damage that those characters can do, and how quickly they can do it. The characters all have a unique passive ability, as well as three special skills. The base skills are tied to each of the bumper triggers and have quick recharge rates, while the third is a powerful 'ultimate' skill that has a slow recharge rate and is fired when ready with a face button. And while the right trigger is always tied to a character's main weapon, the use of the left trigger changes from character to character ' it could be a secondary attack, bring up a bullet-blocking shield, or even turn your pistol into a sniper rifle. Rather than list out the names and talents of all 15 characters, I thought that it would be easier for you just to have a look at them yourself:

Now let's at have a look at leveling and progression, because Battleborn handles these a little differently than other games. First of all, each character begins each match at level one and can rank up to level ten during the course of a match. The next time you play a match with that character, they will be right back at level one. When a character reaches a new level in a match, you'll be able to choose from one of two possible upgrade perks, a system the game has dubbed the 'Helix System'. This allows you to both unlock a character's full potential as well as adding an element of customization to fit your play style.

Stick with a character in multiple matches and you'll be able to improve the character's rank, which also starts at one and tops out at ten. Character rank increases lead to unlocks such as new augments in the skill tree or additional skins for the character. And no matter which characters you play, your overall performance can lead to increases in your command rank. Increasing your command rank unlocks badges, titles, and character gear.

Gear, which is essentially boosts or perks, is earned through loot packs which in turn are earned during the story mode or purchased with credits earned playing either the story mode or multiplayer matches. The packs come with several pieces of gear, and the gear system allows you to add up to three pieces of gear to your character's loadout for a match. However, they won't be enabled at the start of a match. As you play you earn match credits and to enable a piece of gear you'll have to pay its activation cost with those credits. Those same match credits can also be spent on building emplacements such as turrets or health boosters on the map, so you'll have to make a choice between boosting your abilities and helping out the team.

Unfortunately we weren't given the time to play through the 15 matches it would have taken me to try out each character, but the ones that I did have the opportunity to play made it easy to see that not only are there a large variety of characters in the game, each one makes for a different experience. You really do need to understand your current character's strengths and weaknesses and adjust your play to match. With Boldur I had to slowly march into the fray behind his giant shield until I could get close enough to use Boldurdash to rush and knockback an enemy and then start bringing his huge axe down to deal damage. Marquis was more of a sniper specialist, and I had to use his mechanical owl to keep tabs on enemy locations and try to use Temporal Distortion to slow down any that got to close. Phoebe and her five blades meant getting up close and personal like Boldur, but while Boldur is a methodical tank, Phoebe is lightning-fast whirlwind of blades. Orendi is also very quick and has some powerful magical attacks in her arsenal, but she's rather fragile and needs to use her speed to keep out of harm's way. And so it was with each new match, a new character, a new way to play. Some felt completely natural for me to play from the start, while others left me feeling like it would take a little practice for me to understand how to use them effectively.

The multiplayer matches are five on five, and players each have to play a unique character on their team, i.e. you can have two Mikos in a match, but only one per team. Two game modes were available for play, Capture and Meltdown, and a third base defense style mode called Incursion has been announced but was not available to us to play.

Capture will be familiar to anyone who's played a multiplayer game with a control mode. There are three objective locations on the map, and the teams earn points for each objective they hold. Capturing an objective requires occupying the small area around it, and keeping the enemy out and surviving long enough to first neutralize and then claim the objective. Players that are eliminated can spawn back into the game after a 12 second cooldown, and all players spawn into a friendly base area that's a safe zone that prevents spawn camping. The game proceeds until one team scores 1,000 points from holding objectives.

I've always enjoyed this kind of game mode, and Battleborn does a good job of implementing it. The map available for this mode was called Outback, and it resembled a desert area filled with canyons that provided a lot of different approaches to reach the objectives. It's hard to hold and protect three objectives with five players, so the matches were all very fluid tug-of-wars that were generally close until the end.

Meltdown is a mode that is more unique to Battleborn. Each side spawns robots that it must escort to 'recyclers', and the points in this mode are earned by recycling robots, with the first team to reach 1,000 points winning the match. Obviously the goal here is to keep your robots safe while trying to destroy the other team's robots, a task that can be aided by building turret installations along the robot routes.

I had fun playing Meltdown, and I couldn't help but think of the mode as a first-person MOBA mode of sorts. After all, you have a diverse set of player characters, each with their own unique abilities, and robot minions that spawn periodically, begin a steady march towards the opposition, and can attack players along the way. Even the map will have an air of familiarity to MOBA players with its lane-based layout. I found all of this to be great ' it's a unique mode that feels fresh in the multiplayer shooter space while borrowing some of the more enjoyable elements of another genre entirely. I don't want to knock Capture because Capture is a lot of fun, but I can see myself playing a lot of Meltdown when Battleborn is released next year.

And that's about all I have for you after spending a few hours with the game. There's a lot to like about Battleborn's multiplayer modes at this stage of the game's development, and we still have ten more characters coming to the game and an additional game mode to try out. We'll keep you up to date as all of that, and presumably more, is revealed leading up to the game's release in February.