LAIR

An obvious pick for a list such as this one, Lair is forever going to hold the dubious crown of being one of the most bitter disappointments in gaming. Factor 5’s excellent track record and promising pre-launch showings suggested that Lair was going to be a huge early PS3 hit, but upon its release, the game turned out to be sort of a broken mess, thanks in large part to its frustrating motion-heavy controls. Even now, close to two decades later, it’s hard to get over the disappointment that was Lair.

When Gearbox Software released Battleborn in 2016, there was a lot of concern over whether it could survive against competition like Overwatch. Five years later, it’s already been removed from digital storefront and will have its servers shut down today. But this doesn’t just meant that multiplayer will be inaccessible. Even the single-player component of Battleborn is going away for good.

It’s a shame considering the game’s initial potential. Battleborn is a hybrid MOBA/FPS which featured numerous hero characters with unique abilities and gear. The trademark Borderlands-style humor, loot-grinding and diverse builds helped it to stand out against the likes of Overwatch (which is still going strong and has a sequel coming up).

Unfortunately, this never translated into a successful game. Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick said the shooter had performed “below our expectations” and updates would stop one and a half years after launch. Gearbox hasn’t suffered in the interim though – it released Borderlands 3 which was quite successful and has DLC coming up. It’s unlikely that Battleborn will ever see a resurgence in the future but we’ll still wait and see.

It’s now been over 4 years since 2K Games and Gearbox released one of the biggest flops of the last generation, Battleborn. The game was a hero shooter title, but came around the same time as Blizzard’s Overwatch, which completely overshadowed it. Despite that, the game has continued running its servers even if content updates ended long ago, but now that comes to an end.

It was announced last year that the game’s servers would end this month. While this was known, 2K recently updated the announcement page to confirm that once the servers do end this month, it will be the end of any playability for the game, and that includes single player.  It’s unclear as to why that is, but presumable the single player is also tied to servers in some way.

Battleborn transitioned into free-to-play in 2017, but never managed to find much of an audience. The game did have quite the unique look (for the time, anyway, before the cartoony style took over), but was one of the most obvious victims of bad timing with its release. If you’re curious about the game at all before it is eradicated to time, it is free to play on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC and servers will shut down January 25th.

Gearbox Software’s Battleborn is, surprisingly enough, still around but that’s going to be changing in the coming years. 2K Games announced that it’s starting the process of “gradually sunsetting Battleborn.” Virtual currency will be gone on February 24th 2020 and servers will be shut down in January 2021.

The reason for this move is to focus the company’s “efforts and resources on other projects”. As such, the game has already been delisted from digital storefronts. While 2K Games didn’t outright call the game a failure, it’s obvious since launch that it’s had a tough time finding an audience in the shooter market.

It also didn’t help that Overwatch, a more highly anticipated hero shooter, came out around the same time. Though Battleborn went free to play in 2017, the developer confirmed that no new content would be coming. It’s not all bad news for Gearbox fans – the company released Borderlands 3 this year to strong commercial success and has its first DLC pack coming next month.

Quantum Break

Many stories that deal with time travel tend to become their own convoluted messes of paradoxes and twists. Quantum Break kind of suffered from this but still managed to maintain its thrills. Then we got to the ending where sympathetic antagonist Paul Serene was blamed for everything and Jack was asked to join Monarch. The hilarious part is that Jack actually sees two paths, much like how Paul did before making decisions. Then the game ends before we see his choice. And no, this won’t be the last cliff-hangar ending on this list.

Gearbox Software’s under-performing Battleborn won’t be receiving any more updates after the Fall Update. Creative director Randy Varnell announced the same in a forum post and noted that there would be no more Battleplans. Servers for the game will remain online for the “foreseeable future” however.

Interestingly, Varnell will be taking on a role developing Gearbox’s next unannounced game which the majority of the studio is working on. Speculation points at this being the next Borderlands and Gearbox has teased it on a couple of occasions. Varnell went on to thank fans for giving the game a chance and supporting the game.

“I’ve been working on Battleborn nearly exclusively since 2012, and in some ways, that work stretches back to 2009 for me. It’s been a long labor of love with many of my good friends at Gearbox, and I’m proud to have shared that journey with you, our community. Your spirit and loyalty have been a constant inspiration to the team at Gearbox.”

As for Battleborn’s Fall Update, it will bring some new title art, new Finisher boosts and taunts, balance changes, Borderlands-themed skins for its characters and so on.

Despite investing so many resources into Battleborn, the game didn’t perform as per publisher 2K Games’ expectations. The multiplayer component is currently free for anyone to try however and at least for the time being, it’s here to stay.

While Battleborn hasn’t exactly been real popular since the game launched, Gearbox and 2K Games have been working hard to try and win gamers back. Perhaps the biggest step towards making a comeback has come in the form of the game’s “Winter Update” which has brought a ton of new features and upgrades.

We already knew about some of the features the Winter Update brought to Battleborn, but it turns out there are even more things packed in than had been previously discussed. Alongside a UI overhaul and visual enhancements, the game has just gained PS4 Pro support.

There have also been a handful of performance enhancements included in Battleborn in an attempt to bring players back to the game. The entire list of new features coming with the Winter update is here and it’s a rather massive list. The developers have said the enhancements aren’t just as a part of PS4 Pro support, but the regular version of the game is going to look better. Whether this can draw more players in, will only be seen in time.

Gearbox Software’s Battleborn may be beyond redemption at this point but the developer continues to update it. The next big update for Winter will add a ton of quality of life changes to revamp the experience.

These include all 25 characters being unlocked once the Prologue is complete, rebalancing character unlock challenges to award new skins, overhauling the Story Mode missions to reward players more and adding two new training modes, one for PvP and a dojo for battling AI.

The user interface is also receiving some changes while daily quests will be added to the Story and PvP modes. Command Rank is now capped at 150 with character rank increased to 20. The Marketplace will also offer only Core Packs and along with higher chances for rare gear, they will also feature all content found in Faction Packs. Other loot packs can be found in the Story Mode though.

If that weren’t enough, the Winter update will also add support for PS4 Pro, letting you play the game in 1080p/60 FPS or 4K/30 FPS. More information will be offered through the developer’s Twitch on December 8th at 2 PM PST so stay tuned.

There was a time when Battleborn and Evolve were two of the most anticipated games in the industry. Then both games launched and began struggling almost immediately.

It wasn’t that long ago that Gearbox’s CEO Strauss Zelnick talked about their disappointment in the performance of Battleborn, and how that might even lead to the game becoming a free-to-play title. Now the CEO of publisher Take-Two is weighing in as well.

During a recent conference Strauss Zelnick talked about how he doesn’t believe the performance and popularity of the two games does not represent the overall quality of their label. ”

“Listen, I think 2K is doing great. I think when you put out a lot of titles, not everything is going to work as well as one would like, and Battleborn is an example of that. Evolve is a little bit different. That was bought out of a THQ bankrupcy, and it was developed by an external studio with oversight from 2K, so it’s a totally different situation.”

“We knew it was a very unusual title, and it was a bet on an unusual title. It didn’t surprise us that consumers had mixed feelings about it. Battleborn was a disappointment. We’ve said so publicly, but I don’t think that’s systemic, because 2K is a company that brings you basketball which scores in the nineties, XCOM 2 and the like where we’re known for having very high scores,” he stated.

“So, we are in a position where even if we don’t get it exactly right, we can still do well, but make no mistake, our goal is to continue to get it right and to drive quality through the organization. Some times we don’t succeed as well as we would like,” he further added.

Thoughts? Let us know in the comments section below.

Gearbox Software’s Battleborn – which is still a thing – has received a new story DLC called “Toby’s Friendship Raid”.

The DLC is a new “story operation” which sees players infiltrating the LLC’s manufacturing facilities in order to retrieve Toby’s mech. New skins, taunts and chances to earn more Faction Commander Packs are also in store. The DLC is available for Season Pass owners and can also be purchased separately via the in-game market for 700 Platinum.

Gearbox also showcased its newest upcoming hero Beatrix. She’s a former scientist obsessed with hygiene and debuffing enemies using her syringe-arm. Beatrix will arrive in the next few months and can be unlocked in-game with 47,500 Credits or with a Hero Key included in the Season Pass

The next story DLC will be “Oscar Mike Vs. Battle School” and you can expect more content to arrive from Gearbox in the coming months. Three additional story DLC will be coming afterwards along with a free competitive multiplayer mode.