Battleborn's remaining players wave goodbye amid shutdown

Gearbox's ill-fated team-based hero shooter Battleborn went dark yesterday, 31st January 2021 - leading its last remaining players to issue a tearful farewell.

With its servers deactivated, Battleborn is now no longer playable in any form - even single-player. It had already been removed from digital storefronts.

Battleborn was reasonably well-received when it launched for PC and consoles in 2016, with many praising its ambitious, inventive blend of first-person shooting and MOBA-style action, even if the combination didn't always land in practice.

Unfortunately for Battleborn, it was quickly overshadowed by Blizzard's Overwatch, whose success was as immediate and sustained as Battleborn's failure. Publisher 2K declared it a flop a little over three months after its release, and Gearbox adopted a free-to-play model the following year in a last-ditch bid to attract more players.

Despite those efforts, Battleborn just wasn't to be and, a few months later, Gearbox announced its team would be moving to other projects (Borderlands 3) and would no longer be updating the game.

Over on the rapidly shrinking Battleborn subreddit, players have issued their farewells.

It seems unlikely Gearbox will return to the world of Battleborn. Its focus now seems squarely on the Borderlands franchise (a movie is in the works), and publishing, with Homeworld 3 an upcoming title from the company.

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