[00:15] ﻿The release of Borderlands in 2009 marked the&nbsp; first step towards Gearbox Software cementing&nbsp;&nbsp; itself as a master of developing hybrid&nbsp; experiences, games capable of artfully&nbsp;&nbsp; blending together otherwise disparate genres.&nbsp; For the cel-shaded, vault-hunting romp,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:30] such a blend consisted primarily of first-person&nbsp; shooter mechanics and elements consistent with&nbsp;&nbsp; role-playing games. Borderlands went on&nbsp; to enjoy success beyond Gearbox and its&nbsp;&nbsp; publishing partner’s wildest imaginations. It made&nbsp; sense, then, that the studio similarly combined&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:46] genres when trying to break ground in the hero&nbsp; shooter space with a brand-new IP, Battleborn.&nbsp; A fast-paced shooter comprised of a story campaign&nbsp; and competitive multiplayer modes, Battleborn&nbsp;&nbsp; checked several boxes to become equal parts&nbsp; MOBA, first-person shooter, and action-RPG. But&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:03] in striving to cover a wide gamut of experiences&nbsp; in one, the hero-based FPS title lacked focus. Its&nbsp;&nbsp; immediate competition, Blizzard Entertainment’s&nbsp; Overwatch, suffered from no such lack of&nbsp;&nbsp; discipline, an argument Gearbox President Randy&nbsp; Pitchford readily acknowledged when dissecting why&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:19] Blizzard’s endeavor overshadowed that of his team. Pitchford would argue that Battleborn earned&nbsp;&nbsp; the label of failure only because of misguided&nbsp; Overwatch comparisons. To the studio executive,&nbsp;&nbsp; Gearbox’s ambitious new property could have&nbsp; held its own just fine, yet unfavorable&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:35] circumstances—namely its launch three weeks&nbsp; before Overwatch—robbed it of any real chance&nbsp;&nbsp; of doing as much. Regardless, steep discounts,&nbsp; a dismal player retention rate, and reports of a&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:47] last-ditch effort to explore free-to-play options&nbsp; followed Battleborn like a plague within months of&nbsp;&nbsp; its debut. Any attempts at driving engagement&nbsp; were met with disinterest, resulting in an&nbsp;&nbsp; unfortunate but predictably quick demise. This is the tragedy of Battleborn.
[04:01] There exists a clear throughline between Randy&nbsp; Pitchford’s connection to first-person shooters&nbsp;&nbsp; and RPGs and the creation of Borderlands, a&nbsp; connection that later drove Gearbox’s roundabout&nbsp;&nbsp; conception of Battleborn. According to statements&nbsp; the executive made in a Glixel interview, it all&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:17] dated back to the realization that the depth and&nbsp; subtly of 3D action shooters like Duke Nukem 3D&nbsp;&nbsp; could pair well with the “long-range loop” endemic&nbsp; to roguelike and RPG experiences such as Diablo.&nbsp;
[04:29] Though Pitchford and Company’s industry ascent&nbsp; came courtesy of shooters, there was always an&nbsp;&nbsp; appreciation for how the RPG loop revolved around&nbsp; character progression. The team figured that type&nbsp;&nbsp; of layered structure needn’t be mutually exclusive&nbsp; with the short-term, visceral joy of moving and&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:44] shooting in an FPS. Marrying these two disparate&nbsp; parts breathed life into Borderlands. But,&nbsp;&nbsp; strangely, Brothers in Arms—Gearbox’s first&nbsp; original IP—laid the foundation upon which&nbsp;&nbsp; the developers eventually built Battleborn. Ubisoft’s E3 2011 press event featured a surprise&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:01] announcement of Brothers in Arms: Furious Four.&nbsp; Instead of the franchise’s familiar and grounded&nbsp;&nbsp; tone, the Furious Four teaser depicted an&nbsp; Inglourious Basterds-esque veneer that many&nbsp;&nbsp; fans of the beloved shooter series quickly&nbsp; lambasted. A Senior Producer at Ubisoft at&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:16] the time, Nourredine Abboud, told Kotaku in&nbsp; 2011 that the Tarantino-inspired approached&nbsp;&nbsp; stemmed from the publisher and developer’s&nbsp; uncertainty about where to evolve Brothers&nbsp;&nbsp; in Arms. Considering that starting point and the&nbsp; ill-received E3 reveal, Gearbox knew returning&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:31] to the drawing board was the best path forward. Approximately one year later, the studio informed&nbsp;&nbsp; a PAX Prime audience that Furious Four had been&nbsp; uncoupled from the Brothers in Arms name, meaning&nbsp;&nbsp; the Texas-based outfit would create another&nbsp; new first-person shooter IP. Several rounds of&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:48] iteration turned the overly stylish Brothers in&nbsp; Arms project into something entirely different,&nbsp;&nbsp; a hybrid that moved even further than Borderlands&nbsp; from the norms long-established in the FPS genre.&nbsp; Those norms were more or less set in stone&nbsp; during the seventh-console generation,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:02] Pitchford explained. Selling FPS titles to&nbsp; consumers typically focused on the abilities&nbsp;&nbsp; of a single hero; BioShock, for instance, placed&nbsp; an emphasis on the player character wielding&nbsp;&nbsp; standard weapons in one hand and special&nbsp; powers in the opposite. Since so much of&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:16] the industry had mastered the art of designing a&nbsp; single playable hero, Gearbox surmised the next&nbsp;&nbsp; logical step rested in letting users choose from&nbsp; several different character types in one game.&nbsp;&nbsp; Putting those characters and their respective&nbsp; skills on a wide spectrum, then pitting players&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:31] against one another in online matches served as&nbsp; the cornerstone of what Battleborn’s Creative&nbsp;&nbsp; Director Randy Varnell called a “hero game”&nbsp; in Game Informer’s August 2014 cover story[a].&nbsp; Because the game was created in somewhat of&nbsp; a vacuum, void of any knowledge regarding&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:46] Blizzard’s plans for Overwatch, the Battleborn&nbsp; developers felt their hero shooter idea would&nbsp;&nbsp; prove as revolutionary as blending together FPS&nbsp; and role-playing mechanics for Borderlands. All&nbsp;&nbsp; in all, the concept seemed a good bet, considering&nbsp; how easily audiences were drawn to Borderlands’s&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:01] cast of playable Vault Hunters. The success of&nbsp; MOBAs constituted another motivating factor behind&nbsp;&nbsp; Furious Four’s evolution into Battleborn. Drafting&nbsp; an interesting concept present but one challenge&nbsp;&nbsp; in the grand scheme of things, though. The real&nbsp; test expressed itself through the creation of fun&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:18] systems and a compelling game world that would&nbsp; hopefully attract users and keep them invested. &nbsp;
[07:42] Battleborn boasted more of a serious tone in its&nbsp; embryonic phase; Varnell said the goofier bent&nbsp;&nbsp; spawned over the course of development since the&nbsp; creative crew struggled with divesting from what&nbsp;&nbsp; had become its signature humor. Thus, colorful&nbsp; insults and one-liners about the love of battle&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:58] fueled much of the banter between characters.&nbsp; But the tonal shift had no bearing on the&nbsp;&nbsp; game’s cataclysmic premise, which revolved around&nbsp; numerous factions battling for control of Solus,&nbsp;&nbsp; the last star and only remaining energy source in&nbsp; the universe. The factions shared a common enemy&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:15] in The Varelsi, the dark force responsible for&nbsp; destroying every other solar body; as the warring&nbsp;&nbsp; groups fought amongst themselves, the threat&nbsp; of the enigmatic force continuously mounted.&nbsp; Gearbox tied it all together with a five-player&nbsp; story campaign and multiplayer matches,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:31] both of which heavily featured the villainous&nbsp; Varelsi. Despite tone changes during production,&nbsp;&nbsp; the studio approached the storytelling&nbsp; seriously, with the factions especially&nbsp;&nbsp; coming to life courtesy of inspiration&nbsp; from Game of Thrones. That George R.R.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:46] Martin’s characters were neither unilaterally&nbsp; good nor bad counted as one such influence.&nbsp; The motivations of Game of Thrones’s factions&nbsp; proved integral to Battleborn’s creation as well;&nbsp;&nbsp; some groups regularly feuded over personal&nbsp; reasons, others for resource-related purposes.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:02] Either way, all ignored the “big threat up&nbsp; North” looming over the realm. From that thread,&nbsp;&nbsp; Gearbox imagined a situation wherein the&nbsp; rival forces in Game of Thrones would have&nbsp;&nbsp; to lay aside their differences and focus their&nbsp; collective energies on eliminating the common foe.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:18] Varnell told Game Informer these reflections on&nbsp; the popular TV show and book series represented&nbsp;&nbsp; the “great inspiration” for Battleborn. Meanwhile,&nbsp; Star Wars, various JPRGs, and Japanese anime&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:30] helped lay the foundations[b] for the identity&nbsp; of each in-game faction and character—barring&nbsp;&nbsp; the musclebound commando named Montana who’d&nbsp; previously appeared in the Furious Four teaser.&nbsp; Given its pedigree, Gearbox understood the&nbsp; ins and outs of story and character would mean&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:45] little without fun gameplay. The studio leaned&nbsp; on the hero game motif as a result, specifically&nbsp;&nbsp; prioritizing a diverse cast of characters and&nbsp; RPG gameplay loops. Battleborn’s playable heroes&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:57] targeted all types of playstyles; while some&nbsp; wielded rifles or Gatling guns, others utilized&nbsp;&nbsp; magic arrows or telekinetic swords. Character&nbsp; designs similarly explored a range of aesthetics,&nbsp;&nbsp; with the shooter playing host to Sith-like&nbsp; space samurai and bipedal mushroom people.&nbsp;
[10:13] In addition to constructing a cast reminiscent of&nbsp; popular MOBAs, developers also closely examined&nbsp;&nbsp; how the genre implemented progression systems.&nbsp; Gearbox particularly wanted to ensure players&nbsp;&nbsp; could always team up with their friends regardless&nbsp; of each person’s respective level; Battleborn,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[10:30] thus, received a speedy leveling system that&nbsp; reset after every match. Since simplicity and&nbsp;&nbsp; replayablity reigned supreme when it came to&nbsp; gameplay, the studio further tackled issues&nbsp;&nbsp; that had long plagued the likes of Call of Duty. Newcomers to Activision’s annual Call of Duty&nbsp;&nbsp;
[10:46] releases often struggled when competing against&nbsp; veterans of the franchise. Pitchford claimed&nbsp;&nbsp; the new hero shooter would combat the problem by&nbsp; employing the concept of “layering the competitive&nbsp;&nbsp; game on top of the player-versus-environment&nbsp; game.” Enemy NPCs were also implemented for&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:00] less-experienced users. Needless to say,&nbsp; Gearbox aimed to appease those well-versed&nbsp;&nbsp; in first-person shooters and non. The end&nbsp; result ultimately wouldn’t go as planned.
[11:27] In the Game&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:47] Informer issue that accompanied Battleborn’s&nbsp; reveal, Randy Pitchford boasted that “by the&nbsp;&nbsp; time it ships, the amount of effort that’s&nbsp; gone into Battleborn will be greater than&nbsp;&nbsp; the first 10 years of Gearbox’s existence all&nbsp; added together.” The studio President insisted&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:02] it was their most ambitious project, with more&nbsp; staffers and “mindshare” dedicated to it than&nbsp;&nbsp; any previous endeavor. After its rollercoaster&nbsp; of a time during the seventh-console generation,&nbsp;&nbsp; which included victories such as Borderlands 1 and&nbsp; 2 and losses like Duke Nukem Forever and Aliens:&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:19] Colonia Marines, Gearbox needed&nbsp; another win. The team and its&nbsp;&nbsp; publishing partners at 2K Games seemed&nbsp; to believe Battleborn would deliver.&nbsp; It arguably had the look of a winner, thanks in no&nbsp; small part to the striking 2D visuals produced by&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:35] Art Director Scott Kester, Art Producer Sarah&nbsp; Rosa, and Effects Director Michel Gange, the&nbsp;&nbsp; latter of whom had an impressive resume spanning&nbsp; The Iron Giant and Star Wars: The Clone Wars.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:47] Speaking to Official Xbox Magazine about&nbsp; the competitive shooter’s artistic approach,&nbsp;&nbsp; Rosa said marrying Western CGI, specifically the&nbsp; polish of Pixar films, with Japanese animation&nbsp;&nbsp; helped capture a “graphic action-y feel,” which&nbsp; brought flair to the environmental effects and&nbsp;&nbsp;
[13:03] special abilities. Not unlike the gameplay&nbsp; and narrative, Battleborn’s art direction&nbsp;&nbsp; also borrowed from a trove of influences—fighting&nbsp; games, MOBAs, and RPGs, and movies included—all&nbsp;&nbsp;
[13:15] amounted to an ill-fated adventure that&nbsp; tried being everything for everyone.&nbsp; Announced for a 2016 release on PC, PS4, and&nbsp; Xbox One, the hero shooter originally bore a&nbsp;&nbsp; February due date. 2K later delayed it to May 3rd&nbsp; of that year, a business decision the publisher&nbsp;&nbsp;
[13:32] could not have predicted would eventually be&nbsp; considered unwise. In March 2016, Blizzard&nbsp;&nbsp; Entertainment revealed plans to launch its own&nbsp; hero shooter, Overwatch, on May 24th—three weeks&nbsp;&nbsp;
[13:44] after Battleborn’s scheduled debut. Such news&nbsp; spelled trouble for the new Gearbox IP, and Randy&nbsp;&nbsp; Pitchford and crew instantly recognized as much. In a post-launch interview with Glixel,&nbsp;&nbsp; Pitchford admitted fear gripped the Gearbox&nbsp; offices when Blizzard unveiled the Overwatch&nbsp;&nbsp;
[14:00] date. Battleborn’s release had already been&nbsp; set in stone for several months, so a second&nbsp;&nbsp; delay wasn’t optional. Pitchford said when&nbsp; discussing the matter with 2K’s parent company,&nbsp;&nbsp; Take-Two Interactive, he emphasized that Overwatch&nbsp; publisher Activision would “outspend” them with&nbsp;&nbsp;
[14:16] sheer “brute force.” Simply put, there was nothing&nbsp; anyone could do on Battleborn’s side of the fence.&nbsp;&nbsp; Shipping a good game possible and hoping for&nbsp; the best constituted the attitude going forward.&nbsp;
[14:28] Before its wider release, Gearbox and 2K hosted&nbsp; a beta open to the public. The open beta period&nbsp;&nbsp; lasted for 10 days in April 2016; impressions from&nbsp; outlets and players said more or less the same&nbsp;&nbsp;
[14:40] thing—Battleborn played just fine, not bad but it&nbsp; offered nothing particularly special, either. Many&nbsp;&nbsp; believed it lacked direction, reducing the&nbsp; game to jack of all trades, master of none.&nbsp;
[14:52] Of course, the shooter launched to similar&nbsp; criticism, earning middling review scores[c]&nbsp;&nbsp; and little in the way of fanfare. This didn’t&nbsp; necessarily translate to poor sales out of the&nbsp;&nbsp; been “tracking just ahead” of Borderlands 1 in&nbsp; terms of sales. Detailed data would be kept under&nbsp;&nbsp;
[15:09] wraps for quite some time either way; and things&nbsp; especially began looking gloomy once Overwatch hit&nbsp;&nbsp; stores, dominating market share and mindshare. Battleborn received a 40 percent discount on&nbsp;&nbsp;
[15:21] Steam by the end of its launch month. But the&nbsp; steep price reduction hardly impacted the player&nbsp;&nbsp; base on PC, evidenced by Steam Charts showing&nbsp; a drastic decline in active users. In July,&nbsp;&nbsp; the number of players dropped as low as 600,&nbsp; a substantial shift from the approximately&nbsp;&nbsp;
[15:36] 12,000 who boarded the trip to Solus on day&nbsp; one. Some attributed the rapid collapse to&nbsp;&nbsp; the introduction of microtransactions and&nbsp; Premium Currency, with Gearbox’s promises&nbsp;&nbsp; of continuing to deploy free content having&nbsp; no effect on the game’s potential growth.&nbsp;
[15:51] Take-Two confirmed the suspected commercial&nbsp; shortcomings in an August 2016 financial report,&nbsp;&nbsp; as CEO Strauss Zelnick revealed that Battleborn&nbsp; sold below expectations. The executive insisted&nbsp;&nbsp;
[16:03] the shooter could still cultivate an audience,&nbsp; reiterating 2K’s intention of supporting it long&nbsp;&nbsp; term. Gearbox’s previous announcement of five free&nbsp; playable heroes and a Season Pass packing five DLC&nbsp;&nbsp; add-ons outlined the immediate post-launch plans;&nbsp; yet, the future beyond these prearranged releases&nbsp;&nbsp;
[16:19] looked murky at best. As such, after&nbsp; only a handful of months on the market,&nbsp;&nbsp; reports of a free-to-play version started&nbsp; hinting at Battleborn’s last bastion of hope.
[16:53] Based on sources familiar with Battleborn’s&nbsp; production, Kotaku wrote a report in September&nbsp;&nbsp; 2016 that alleged developers were priming the&nbsp; underperforming shooter for a free-to-play&nbsp;&nbsp; release. Reportedly, such a launch had already&nbsp; suffered two delays. The publication’s sources&nbsp;&nbsp;
[17:09] 2K Games supposedly dismissed the idea outright,&nbsp; wanting to ship a full-priced, $60 package.&nbsp; calling the story false in a post on his&nbsp; personal Twitter account. In a subsequent tweet,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[17:28] the Gearbox President teased an unannounced “trial&nbsp; version” of Battleborn, purposefully avoiding&nbsp;&nbsp; the free-to-play nomenclature. Vague naming&nbsp; conventions aside, the hero shooter essentially&nbsp;&nbsp; embraced the free-to-play route with a so-called&nbsp; “free trial” iteration in June 2017. It included&nbsp;&nbsp;
[17:45] unlimited access to every competitive multiplayer&nbsp; mode, along with a rotating cast of six playable&nbsp;&nbsp; characters. Fans who previously purchased the&nbsp; title were promoted as Founders, thereby gaining&nbsp;&nbsp; access to several pieces of free content meant&nbsp; to compensate them for being early adopters.&nbsp;
[18:00] In the months leading up to the free-to-play&nbsp; rollout, Pitchford gave interviews wherein&nbsp;&nbsp; he staunchly defended Battleborn’s market&nbsp; performance. Its perceived failure merely&nbsp;&nbsp; constituted a matter of perception, based&nbsp; wholly on the impossible-to-avoid comparisons&nbsp;&nbsp;
[18:14] to Overwatch. The executive divulged in&nbsp; January 2017 that Battleborn had amassed&nbsp;&nbsp; three and a half million users up until&nbsp; that point. He lamented that, as far as&nbsp;&nbsp; the general consensus was concerned, these numbers&nbsp; relative to Overwatch’s success equaled failure;&nbsp;&nbsp;
[18:30] by comparison the Blizzard-created hero shooter&nbsp; hosted upwards of 25 million registered users&nbsp;&nbsp; around the same time. But if Battleborn had&nbsp; landed without direct competition looming,&nbsp;&nbsp; Pitchford maintained it would’ve&nbsp; been deemed a success, even if&nbsp;&nbsp;
[18:44] Still, the outspoken industry veteran had no&nbsp; trouble acknowledging Battleborn’s weaknesses&nbsp;&nbsp; when stacked against Overwatch’s better qualities.&nbsp; Blizzard perfectly executed the hero shooter&nbsp;&nbsp;
[18:57] concept in his eyes, due in part because the&nbsp; team existed on a plane that others aspired to,&nbsp;&nbsp; but also because Overwatch had more&nbsp; of a “narrow focus” than Battleborn.&nbsp;&nbsp; The constant comparisons were what truly pushed&nbsp; down the latter, he argued, stating that anyone&nbsp;&nbsp;
[19:11] who spent significant time playing both games&nbsp; could articulate the differences. Meanwhile,&nbsp;&nbsp; examining them superficially suggested they&nbsp; approached the subgenre from the same angle.&nbsp;&nbsp; He called it “bad strategy” to operate on the&nbsp; notion of becoming the best at something when,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[19:25] on the other hand, offering a unique service&nbsp; meant competing with one’s self. For Gearbox&nbsp;&nbsp; and Battleborn, then, Pitchford felt the&nbsp; jig was up once Blizzard entered the race.&nbsp; Gearbox’s participation in the race screeched&nbsp; to a halt in September 2017. Just 15 months&nbsp;&nbsp;
[19:42] after Battleborn debuted, the company announced&nbsp; the Fall Update[d] would mark the final curtain&nbsp;&nbsp; call for new content drops. 2K and Gearbox&nbsp; began “gradually sunsetting” the game in late&nbsp;&nbsp; 2019 until online servers officially shut down in&nbsp; January 2021, thus making Battleborn unplayable.&nbsp;
[20:00] When asked why[e] Borderlands 3 didn’t serve as&nbsp; Gearbox’s first project for eighth-gen consoles,&nbsp;&nbsp; Pitchford confessed it would’ve crumbled&nbsp; beneath the weight of high expectations in&nbsp;&nbsp; a next-generation environment—pressure the crew&nbsp; was not yet ready to face. Handing off a third&nbsp;&nbsp;
[20:15] Borderlands game, the Pre-Sequel, to 2K Australia,&nbsp; then focusing on what eventually morphed into&nbsp;&nbsp; Battleborn relieved some pressure. Yet, the fruits&nbsp; born from sidelining its golden goose and building&nbsp;&nbsp; a hero shooter resulted in the developer’s&nbsp; attempt at breaking new ground technically&nbsp;&nbsp;
[20:30] ceasing to exist after only five years. Gearbox,&nbsp; and perhaps Borderlands 3, likely benefited&nbsp;&nbsp; from Battleborn’s creation, but it’s unfortunate&nbsp; that the domineering impact of Overwatch stunted&nbsp;&nbsp;
[20:42] the growth of a project designed to push the&nbsp; envelope—even if the best game won out in the end.