Gearbox Announces The Beginning Of The End Of Battleborn

Gearbox Software has had to make the tough choice of announcing that the beginning of the end is nigh for the company's multiplayer hero-shooter, Battleborn. The game only came out just last year but the studio is winding down development for any future updates for the first-person shooter.

In a message shared on the Gearbox forum by the community manager, it was revealed that future updates for Battleborn will cease starting this fall. The original letter was written by Battleborn creative director, Randy Varnell. In the letter Varnell explains...

Varnell goes on to explain that the last and final update for Battleborn will feature updated title art, some brand new significant challenges added to the game, along with all new Finisher Boosts and brand new taunts for some of the characters. The final update will also contain some minor balance tweaks for the characters and gameplay as it rounds out the final stretch of support for the first-person shooter.

Varnell will be taking his expertise to another unannounced project by Gearbox Software, one that many assume will be Borderlands 3. There's a bit of wavering hype around the game, with some people excited and others reluctantly nervous. Over the years Gearbox Software has had some serious ups and downs when it comes to outings (more downs recently than ups), and it has left some gamers skeptical about the quality of the upcoming first-person shooter.

Nevertheless, if you've been playing Battleborn you'll continue to be able to do so, just don't expect any new updates or content for it. In the letter, Varnell explains that Gearbox will keep the servers up and running for the "foreseeable" future, but there's no time frame on how long that will be.

Battleborn only just came out last year ahead of the release of Overwatch. Both games are very similar to one another, but Blizzard managed to round up the casual audience with a Pixar-inspired art-style and a simple gameplay hook. The cinematic movies and character designs also helped a lot with winning over major mind-share well ahead of the game's release. It was no surprise that Overwatch ended up curb-stomping Battleborn in sales once both games were on the market.

Since that time Gearbox has been working hard to pump out new content and attempt to win over gamers with new maps, skins, and features, but nothing could help the game's player-count.

Surprisingly, though, the game actually contains more depth and variety than Overwatch, including having an actual cooperative story mode that players can battle through. Despite this fact, the game just couldn't grab a hold of a sizable share of the market, and even as a multiplatform release, sales just never really picked up any momentum. Gearbox decided to cut its losses and focus on its next big game that could possibly be unveiled during one of next year's major trade shows.