Battleborn Review in Progress: Singe Player

After playing through the Prologue of Battleborn, I was fairly excited for what the game, on a single player level, might be able to offer. As with all online centered titles, it is often hard to create an enjoyable single player experience. I often find that you are damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. Gearbox fell into this trap and ends up taking a lot of heat, probably causing the developers to thing, “Was it worth it?”

Let’s get something out of the way right off the top. Yes, Battleborn is meant to be played online, and yes, the single player campaign is definitely more of an add on to appease some rather than something substantial. While the prologue was great, and got the campaign off to a great start, the rest plays out in a fairly repetitive, very linear way. Move to a new area, defeat the oncoming horde of enemies, and repeat. Levels are somewhat broken up by mini bosses or larger end-level bosses, but these also become repetitive, bullet sponge enemies. There is never a real sense of strategy when fighting any particular boss, but just a need to pump it with as many bullets as possible while side stepping its numerous attacks.

In spurts, the campaign is a nice way to get away from the hectic arenas of online play into a somewhat calmer single player experience. At a level or two per night, its not nearly as much as a slog as it would be if you tried to complete it straight in a few hours. While the character variety definitely helps, it never really makes up for the repetitive nature of the levels or the predictability of what you’ll find around each corner.

Aspects of the single player – which are constant across the entire game – are still fun. Mowing down a horde of enemies, at times, is incredibly satisfying, but you are not limited to single player to get that amazing experience. If you are planning on only playing Battleborn in single player, I’d hold off and wait for a price drop. Multiplayer is what Gearbox and 2K are charging the 59.99 for. The single player aspect, however, might not even be worth 20.

Overall, the single player experience gets a score of 7.0/10.

Read our prologue coverage here.

Read our multiplayer coverage here.