While Gearbox might be riding high right now with Borderlands 3, it wasn't that long ago that they attempted a whole new IP that didn't fare well. Development and updates for Battleborn officially ended two years ago and, honestly, I thought that the game was done around that same time. Apparently it's still been kicking around, but publisher 2K is now calling it quits and pulling the servers down... in another two years.
In fairness, it's good that they are giving plenty of notice of the game's eventual demise; allows folks to wrap things up before this hobby-grade shooter rides off into the sunset. However, there is one particular part of the game that should have been shutdown immediately when this announcement was made. See if you can spot which one it is:
- Premium currency will no longer be sold starting February 24, 2020 - yep, it's this one. So... you're shutting a game down and will leave players with no way to play it (spoilers for the next bullet point), but you'll let them keep buying currency for a couple months... yeah...
DON'T. BUY. ANYTHING!
- Official shutdown timeframe is January 2021 - you can play the game up until the servers are shutdown, but once they go, the game is done. You'll have no way to play any part of Battleborn after the servers get shutdown.
Battleborn wasn't all bad, but it's release timing was VERY unfortunate (Overwatch was released a few weeks after it and drank its milkshake) and it couldn't quite commit to being a team/hero-based PvP shooter, or a PvE game. Neither element felt great and I think if Gearbox had focused on one or the other, they could have wound up with something.
Battleborn is currently available as a free-to-play title on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. Five player online co-op is supported in the campaign missions.
Source: Eurogamer.net