Gearbox Software, the studio behind acclaimed titles such as Borderlands and Brothers in Arms as well as atrocities like Duke Nukem Forever and Aliens: Colonial Marines have announced their newest endeavor: the multiplayer shooter/RPG hybrid Battleborn.
Battleborn, from the looks of it, seeks to take the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena formula popularized by DOTA to a whole new level. The game will be first-person instead of the typical top-down perspective and will feature an enormous variety of characters and playstyles. Publisher 2K describes the game as such:
Set in a distant future, the only hope for the last star in a dying universe is a new breed of warriors who must put aside their differences to drive back an unstoppable menace. Players choose from a myriad of powerful heroes and fight together alongside their friends in a narrative-driven co-operative campaign, or battle against them in fast-paced competitive multiplayer matches.
The reveal trailer showcases a number of distinct characters working together to fend off a seemingly endless army of little robotic beetles.The characters showcased include a minigun-wielding behemoth with a disproportionately tiny head, an elf-like woman with a bow and arrow, a bowler hat-wearing steampunk robot wielding a rifle that it carries around like a cane, a samurai looking fellow with more swords than he can carry, and some kind of sorceress that looks like a cross between Mary Poppins and Princess Peach.
Game Informer, who visited Gearbox’s office in Texas to try out the game, described Battleborn as having “fast-paced first-person gameplay with the strategic team-based elements of games like League of Legends and Dota 2. Players can level up 20 times and unlock new abilities and playstyles. Game Informer also noted that the game’s various characters play so differently from one another that they could have each been ripped from a number of different genres. In addition to the obligatory five ersus five adversarial multiplayer, Battleborn will also include a five-player cooperative campaign.
Gearbox President Randy Pitchford said in a press release that “If Borderlands 2 is a shooter-looter, Battleborn is a hero-shooter. As a genre-fused, hobby-grade, co-operative and competitive FPS exploding with eye-popping style and an imaginative universe, Batttleborn is the most ambitious videogame that Gearbox has ever created.”
Battleborn is set to be released on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC sometime in 2015.