Battleborn (PS4) Review in Progress – The Prologue

All I have seen on the Internet since Battleborn launched on May 3rd was how amazing the prologue was. To the credit of everyone who said it, they were absolutely right. Through the awesome and fresh cinematic, to the choice of music, to the introduction of various game play mechanics, the beginning of Battleborn gets off to a wonderful start. For a game that relies so heavily on its multiplayer portion, the fun-to-play prologue is really pushing the idea of Battleborn being a fun game, even alone.

The action is intense and fierce, and it is not long before you  get thrown into the thick of it. I assume the difficulty level might ramp up as I go, but early on it’s basically just pull the trigger and fire, and learn the special perks as you go along. It took me less than 10 minutes to figure out all my perks I received when I leveled up I could add more. Each level gives you the option of a new perk, one decision mapped to your right bumper and one to your left. Read both carefully before choosing. I realized quickly there was no turning back, even after accidentally pressing once since I thought that is what would bring up the details! In this specific situation, I would have liked to see a short text window explaining how the system worked.

Learning which enemies reacted in what way was key to making it through the prologue without ever having to respawn, and when you wiped out a small army in any particular area, it felt satisfying. Throughout the game, it appears as if you will pick up shards – currency – which will allow you to build specific items in certain areas. In a large hall, for example, I was able to construct a drone that would follow me around until destroyed, and when I reached a large open area, I dropped 400 shards on very effective turret! This is really what drives you to search out every corner of this fairly linear game. Without this currency system, the game would feel even more narrow than it already is.

The boss fight at the end of the prologue was unfortunately fairly unsatisfying. The boss – which was essentially just a huge bullet sponge that took tons of damage – wasn’t particularly interesting and there wasn’t any real sense of accomplishment when I was finished. This is fairly disappointing, especially after what I thought was an excellent start to the single player experience.

Battleborn carries a very Borderlands-esque approach, and this is easily understood as the game is developed by Gearbox. The Borderlands like skin over everything gave me a feeling of familiarity and certain things that I was use to in Borderlands (un)surprisingly were present here again. It might be small, but it helped in settling me into the game play of Battleborn quicker. Based on what I have played so far, I feel like Battleborn will be an excellent experience all around. It might not be the 10/10 that some people are claiming, but I believe I’m about to indulge in hours of an above average, online (MOBA) shooter.

Battleborn is available on PS4 and Xbox One. We are reviewing the PS4 version courtesy of 2K Games.