Battleborn game is pretty fun, but not groundbreakin.

The multiplayer component of Borderlands, in particular, has proven very popular so it’s no surprise the developer has turned their hand to the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) genre.

The game they’ve produced is Battleborn, published by 2K Games on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 and taking place in a far future setting where an alien threat has been eating all the stars in the universe; the survivors have made their way to the last remaining one for an Ultimate Showdown to defeat the threat.

The player takes control of a Battleborn, the heroes of the game. There are presently 25 to choose from, including a traditional FPS soldier, a bow-wielding elven warrior, a swordfighter, an unhinged Artificial Intelligence and an aristocratic gentleman robot sniper.

Each Battleborn has three special abilities they can deploy during a match, such as slowing time or calling in air strikes, with the power or effect being levelled up with choices as the player makes kills. At the end of the match, the skills reset. It sounds frustrating in print, but it works rather well in-game, giving you new powers as the match progresses to spring on your opponents when they least expect it.

Battleborn is clearly designed for the multiplayer component.Source:Supplied

You can’t play as all 25+ characters straight away, of course. No, you start with five have to unlock the rest via successful missions and matches, and to be honest it started to feel a bit grindy after a while, even with the game’s light approach to the proceedings.

The creators have eschewed gritty realism or sleek neo-futurism in favour of something like a Saturday morning cartoon, with bright graphics, silly humour and a solid acknowledgment it’s not taking itself too seriously.

This element of the game works quite well for the most part, and some of the humour is quite deft too — the Oscar Mike character, for example, lampshades stereotypical FPS “dudebro” gamers very well — and all the characters have their own distinctive catchphrases and quirky personalities.

The controls are responsive and the weapons are also varied and interesting, ranging from swords to submachine-guns to bows and arrows to laser guns to sniper rifles, and there are also gear upgrades and loot to be obtained as well.

The story, however, is vastly underused and the single-player campaign mode consists of just eight missions and a prologue; it’s really there to serve as a learning to play exercise and provide some background to the proceedings, but the reality is you’re not playing a game like this for its compelling plot.

Which is just as well because I found the single-player campaign uninspiring and even tedious at times, with missions sometimes taking more than 40 minutes.

There were also a number of times where, having wiped out successive waves of enemies and thinking I could move onto the next objective, the game informed me that — surprise — there were more of them on their way for a chat with the business end of whatever weapon I was wielding. Instead being funny or unexpected, it was just irritating.

Battleborn frequently has too much happening.Source:Supplied

Battleborn is clearly designed for the multiplayer component and the action is fast and frenetic, with a lot happening on the screen — things exploding, enemies swarming, laser guns firing, swords flashing, bullets flying and special effects happening.

In fact, there’s frequently too much happening — some of the matches I played ended up looking like the confusing inside of a cartoon explosions factory which also made special effects lights, numbers, and murder robots.

Which makes the rather dull single-play campaign all the more surprising. The missions all seem to involve basically the same thing, namely kill wave after wave of enemies, defend a strategic point against more enemies (and if it gets destroyed, you lose), and fight a large boss enemy while being attacked by more enemies.

The missions are more interesting and much more fun with a party of heroes, but in contrast to the slog they are in single-player, with a decent group you can power through many of the missions in a fairly straightforward way and the humour ends up becoming background noise rather than something to chuckle at.

There are three other team vs. team game modes, including one where you fight to destroy the other team’s giant sentry death robot, another where you escort robot minions to the incinerator while trying to stop the other team doing the same, and the traditional capture the flag-type mode.

Battleborn taking place in a far future setting.Source:Supplied

Matchmaking appears flawed however; on at least one occasion the game couldn’t find anyone to match me with to play a public story mission on a weeknight, and there have been numerous reports from gamers at lower levels finding themselves facing off against exponentially higher ranked players (something I have experienced myself), with predictable results. Other players have also reported several minute long waits for a spot on a server as well.

A large issue overall is that Battleborn doesn’t seem to know what it is. Is it a team shooter? A MOBA? A multiplayer loot shooter? It tries to be many things and ends up doing none of them outstandingly, meaning the overall package ends up lacking something overall.

Which is a shame, because it isn’t a bad game and the Saturday morning cartoon vibe of the whole thing is quite well done. There’s also a huge range of heroes to suit most playstyles and frankly not enough games make an effort to be genuinely funny.

It’s clear the team at Gearbox have put a lot of effort into it — they should be lauded for trying something new, even if it hasn’t quite come together this time around.

If anything, Battleborn is a victim of unfortunate timing — Blizzard’s eagerly anticipated team shooter Overwatch is out imminently and almost certain to split the FPS market further — as well as having too high a price point.

As a stand-alone game I think Battleborn simply isn’t worth the approximately $79 retail price at time of writing, given the generally OK-but-not-great experience I had with it.

When the price drops significantly will be worth checking out, but in the meantime, unless you’re a huge fan of Gearbox’s work, love the MOBA genre, or you’re an extremely devoted FPS player, it’s not an essential addition to your gaming library right now.