Gearbox has been saying it like a mantra since just after the game was revealed: Battleborn isn’t a MOBA. The initial reveal that showed off Incursion mode is admittedly the most MOBA-like of the bunch, and they’ve been fighting that label ever since. Trying to convince the masses that the game is a whole lot more than a first person League of Legends can be tough when people are quick to judge a book by its cover (ask Microsoft about that).
Well what is it then? Gearbox’s preferred identifier is ‘Hero Shooter’. To get a sense of what that means, I spent a day at 2K headquarters playing a whole lot of whatever Battleborn is – specifically, Incursion mode. Turns out it’s a lot of things – a crazy hybrid of genres that ought to have no business working, but kind of does. The development team frequently mentions flexibility when talking about being successful in the game; a flexible conception of Battleborn is necessary to understand the game as a whole.
Battleborn is a Shooter
This is a given, right? I mean, they call it a hero shooter, so it must have shooting. Well, yes and no. For a game that is ostensibly a shooter, a huge proportion of the 25 characters are melee focused or otherwise short range. There’s a great reason for this though, and that’s balance. Harmonizing your team with traditional tank, DPS, and support based characters is crucial, as several crushing losses taught the team I played with. That doesn’t mean there isn’t an insane level of variety though.
Let’s do a little math here (don’t worry, I did the work for you). 25 characters, 5 players per team (with no duplicate characters), 2 teams. That means each team can be one of 53130 combinations, giving almost 3 billion different team matchups without considering each character’s over 1000 individual builds. That’s an impossible amount of variability to physically test for, meaning overpowered combinations are almost guaranteed to appear eventually.
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“It’s important to predict how your opponents might adjust to your adjustments and adjust to those adjustments…”
Thanks to this, every match felt totally different – even one player changing characters (on either team) can completely change how a match progresses, and it becomes a real chess match with the other team. As we progressed, it became clear that changing your tactics was not enough to stay ahead – it’s also important to predict how your opponents might adjust to your adjustments and adjust to those adjustments, and so on, spiraling down the rabbit hole like a fractal pattern.
Speaking of feel, Battleborn handles just like you’d expect. It’s tight and polished, and definitely reminiscent of Borderlands. But those elements were peripheral to the experience a lot of the time, feeling like minutiae performed by a worker ant in a vast colony.
Battleborn is a MOBA
I know, I said that Battleborn isn’t a MOBA. Some aspects of the game are suspiciously MOBA-like though, especially Incursion mode. Incursion mode has defined lanes, minions (creeps), sentries (towers), and jungling. Knowing your role, sticking to it, and communicating effectively with teammates is the difference between survival and extinction here.
At first, we played the game like any other shooter. We paid dearly, getting obliterated without scoring a single point. It was only when we started thinking MOBA that we started having success. Support units need to keep buffing up the tanks while attackers flank (gank?) and collect shards (the currency) for building defenses. Getting a harmonious balance going on a team feels fantastic, but it’s one of the things that greatly concerns me about Battleborn.
If you’ve played a shooter lately, you know the kind of people who are on there. Most people don’t bother with a microphone, and the few who do usually spew offensive remarks in abundance. Battleborn requires teamwork, and teammates you can rely on. I pictured myself matchmaking into a group without mics, and that was a dark realization. We’d be throttled, especially if the other team had any kind of organization. I think that kind of experience could put off a lot of casual shooter fans in much the same way people get discouraged from playing DOTA or League of Legends.
Battleborn is an RTS
Right now you’re thinking I’m crazy. Hear me out. A lot of the familiar elements of RTS classics are present in Battleborn, especially in Incursion mode. While playing, I found myself visualizing the map from a top-down RTS perspective. Of course you take a more active role in things, but the process of sending players to manage various areas of the map, recruiting mercenaries to your cause, and spending currency on turrets etc. is eerily like an RTS.
Battleborn is Its Own Thing
And that’s a great idea. Sequelitis is the bane of our existence as writers, and Battleborn is a refreshing combination of genres. It’s challenging and entertaining, but difficult to define. 2K and Gearbox’s marketing of the game is going to be of extreme importance if they’re going to build a strong ongoing player base in a market that is notoriously goldfish-like. Still, it’s an intriguing product that has the potential to become a mainstay in the team-based shooter scene, and I’m excited to see what other surprises the developers are still keeping under their hats.
