Battleborn Creative Director Randy Varnell says there are no plans to add more content to the game after the next update. The Battleborn servers should remain online for the foreseeable future Gearbox says, but the lack of updates effectively kills what was already a low population game. According to Steam Charts, the last 30 days has only seen a peak of 150 players in the game with the average being around 73.
Battleborn went free-to-play back in June with a “Free Trial” version. The move to freemium saw a brief resurgence in interest in the game, but now players are at an all-time low. Gearbox released it only 15 months ago, but it seems like the writing is on the wall.
Also: Check Out What We Thought of Battleborn In Our Review
The Fall Update for Battleborn will bring some new Borderlands-themed skins, though whether anyone will be around to earn or buy them is doubtful. The game never achieved a following, and Overwatch locked down the “hero shooter” genre out of the gate. If there’s any surprise with this decision, it’s that it didn’t come sooner.
Battleborn is just the latest in Gearbox’s history of games that have missed the mark this decade. For every Borderlands, the company has had an Aliens: Colonial Marines and the upcoming Project 1v1 collectible card game/competitive shooter looks to be answering another question that no one asked.
The last outstanding original title Gearbox released was Borderlands 2, and even that (and especially Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel) was like the Spamalot of video games. We get it; you’re all very zany and memey, can we please get on with it? Hopefully, Borderlands 3 will go back to the more grounded “western in space” aesthetic that made the original so compelling while improving upon the stellar gameplay we saw in the second game.
Whether Gearbox can stand another flub like Battleborn is up in the air. They’re not wholly owned as a subsidiary of a bigger company, but 2K Games has published their big games. If Gearbox were an EA studio, they’d already have closed by now, but maybe that Fig money will help them weather hard times.
As for Battleborn, it’s on life support, and with the low population numbers right now, I wouldn’t expect it to be long before someone pulls the plug.
