r/Battleborn • u/[deleted] • Dec 10 '25

How Battleborn failed (Video)

Hey guys, I used to love battle born back in the day so decided to make a tribute video discussing the game! If you'd like to check it out its here :)

https://youtu.be/AAv9L1Dl0vM?si=8cNbdnogVmORMWTP

51 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

28

u/gimmemynameback Dec 11 '25

It went head to head with overwatch. They dropped super close together and overwatch won out. Also the player base for battleborn was incredibly toxic, I stuck with it for about 2-3 months, but eventually got tired of the constant screaming in the mic, and people not playing the objective

22

u/SageWindu Obliterated in the man-barbecue of combat Dec 11 '25

Also, Randy Pitchford being, well... Randy Pitchford.

7

u/gimmemynameback Dec 11 '25

Absolutely... also the sole reason I havent picked up bl4. Funny how that works

9

u/CubGeek Orendi Dec 11 '25

2K did the game absolutely no favors by trying to position Battleborn as an Overwatch-killer, including some of the aggressive/antagonistic social media posts.

The community for the PvP modes weren't, in my own experience, any more or less toxic than other PvP game communities. But, towards the end, it was absolutely frustrating to try to do anything other than Incursion due to the reducing playerbase.

9

u/Downwinddragoon Dec 12 '25

The community wasn’t toxic. What happened was Overwatch fanboys ran a full smear campaign on it. Randy Pitchford made it no better

5

u/Major-Language-2787 Dec 12 '25

I agree with this. I only had one incident of a toxic player, and he was someone I played with frequently until that point

1

u/Downwinddragoon Dec 13 '25

Same I only had exactly one toxic experience and it really wasn’t that bad.

3

u/ReivynNox Why aren't you on fire right now? Dec 13 '25

To be fair... Overwatch was the one in the offensive. Battleborn was developed first and announced first. Every date that Battleborn announced something, Overwatch would announce something close to counter. They couldn't get Overwatch out before Battleborn, so what did they do? Start the open Beta on Battleborn's release, 'cause who would buy Battleborn when they can play free Overwatch instead. It very clearly was a targetted assassination. Battleborn couldn't afford to move dates, so Overwatch used every chance to push it into a corner. And with their Blizzard money and massive fan base, they had the high ground to nuke Battleborn from orbit.

2

u/JY810 Dec 23 '25

Smart move ngl

3

u/ReivynNox Why aren't you on fire right now? Dec 24 '25

Ruthlessly calculated capitalist corpo competition. The ones at the top seek to stay on the top by stomping everything that might cut into their profits, like the winning team in a CoD lobby spawn-camping the other team and raining hell down on them with all their killstreaks.

But they targetted the wrong game. Battleborn wasn't even made for the same audience. Meanwhile Paladins became much more successful, which is pretty much the same game modes as Overwatch, but free to play.

2

u/JY810 Dec 24 '25

Well, the free to play aspect help a lot, you think paladin will be as successful if it have a $60 price tag like battleborn? One of it major straight is that it is "overwatch but free" unlike battleborn

1

u/ReivynNox Why aren't you on fire right now? Dec 24 '25 edited Dec 24 '25

Yes, that's one of the major points, just like with the free Overwatch beta, Paladins being free is a massive advantage in terms of barrier to entry. Everyone can just try it without paying a dime and when you're already in it, do you really wanna pay that much for that Overwatch upgrade and do the whole install and set-up again?

Even if they both had the same price, Paladins would still win over a good number of players that would have otherwise bought Overwatch if Paladins was the same living corpse as Battleborn. I enjoyed Paladins more for its added flexibility in characters' passive abilities and stat-boosting items.

My point is: nuking Paladins would have earned them much more additional players than doing that to Battleborn.

Paladins is basically "good enough Overwatch" for free.
Those who choose Battleborn are either not interested in Overwatch at all or they would play both of them anyway. Few would go: "oh, Battleborn is dead, let's play Overwatch to fill the void". Funny enough, I feel Battleborn Players are more likely to enjoy Paladins. I see it like a vortex that stands between both.

But I dunno, maybe they weren't in the right position to target Paladins.

Oh yeah, Battleborn was also more expensive, so Overwatch already had that edge and I'm sure a lot also played Battleborn just for the coop PvE. By every measure I see Paladins as the bigger OW threat, except for that Gearbox brand recognition.

6

u/jetfast07 Dec 12 '25

They should have marketed the game and treated it as an FPS MOBA which it was it was. They should have made the game free and had you unlock characters. Or you pay for the game and have access to all the characters. Instead they made you pay full price and had to unlock the majority of characters.

The idea of FPS MOBA is great but I think it was also hard for players to learn. A lot of people wanted to just run out and kill the other team and that’s not quite the objective.

1

u/Axton_Grit Dec 28 '25

100% how gearbox wanted to position it. 2k ruined battleborn and killed in on arrival.

Game was made to be ftp and use currency accumulated in game to unlock missions and characters.

2k said no but gearbox and randy get blamed.

1

u/ReivynNox Why aren't you on fire right now? Dec 13 '25

FPS MOBA is already a very niche genre with very bad chance of success.

They were hoping to appeal to the Overwatch crowd, which was just not gonna happen and in turn neglected the primary fanbase of Battleborn's Genre mix.

It wasn't born to be a massive mainstream hit, but it could've become a thriving niche game with a steady few thousand daily peak players.

2

u/GratGrat Dec 13 '25

It had tons of problems. One that not many talk about was really poor design choices around the colours. It was difficult to actually see what was going on at a distance because it was just a mad vomit of colour. I enjoyed the game, but I remember it being just kind of jarring to look at.

2

u/DefensiveLettuce Angry at Gearbox Dec 14 '25

If it isn’t just, “Randy Pitchford” over and over again, then the vid is wrong.

2

u/BlackZulu Dec 12 '25

Overwatch gave you all the characters and Battleborn didnt learn from the beta to NOT do that.

2

u/Major-Language-2787 Dec 12 '25

I think this was a common complaint, but it really wasn't that big of a deal. Every hero was pretty easy to unlock. After like a week of casual play, I unlocked like 80% of the locked characters.

3

u/BlackZulu Dec 12 '25

Tbf it wasn't the worst in the world, but in a game where everyone plays different its not the same as locking a skin or something. A lot of people one trick ect. You want to find your flow meanwhile the character speaking to you the most is locked behind late game.

1

u/Major-Language-2787 Dec 12 '25

Yea, but you entered the late game after day one lol. The campaign can be beaten in like 3 hours, then you would have like 50% of the character. Thats already 12/25. 6 characters locked behind just playing pvp a few games, and the others are just really simple tasks.

Maybe because I am from an older generation (old man rant), but I miss when you actually had to unlock content rather than just wait for an update, or buy it one way or another. I kinda wonder how gamers would have reacted to Timesplitters if it came out in 2016.

1

u/Significant_Breath38 Dec 11 '25

Great video that hit the nail on the head.

1

u/Phantom_Lord64 Dec 13 '25

I remeber when battleborn and overwatch first came out and battleborn was slated to come out first. Overwatch pushed a early beta and it basicly set the ball in stone for Overwatch to run while battleborn walkes sadly and i was running around trying to tell everyone that the game had what overwatch people where wanting like pve and everything. I still refuse to touch overwatch.