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Gearbox Software: Progression In Battleborn

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Gearbox Software has been on the task of creating a new IP, in the vein of Borderlands, but one that is set in a different universe with quirky and often times humorous heroes. Battleborn is a funny and beautiful world, but it stumbles at the hands of the game's excruciating progression systems and thin multiplayer modes.
It's the Battleborn, who are comprised of a variety of misfit characters, versus the Varelsi and gamers are tasked with the challenge of saving the galaxy from the game's antagonist Rendain. The game's narrative and story missions are entertaining and funny with snappy dialogue and the excellent wit we are used to seeing from Gearbox Software.
Story Mode features nine missions for gamers to play through, in addition to a …show more content…

There were numerous times when my friend and I were engaged in combat and gameplay would become choppy and extremely difficult to endure until the frame rate stabilized.
Now let's get into progression, an element of the game that could've been great. Progression in Battleborn is something that tastes great at first, only to become stale and remarkably grindy. Players have their Command Rank, Character Rank and in game Helix Rank, the latter of which resets at the start of each mission.
Progression in Battleborn turns out to be tedious due to the gameplay turning out to be largely repetitive. After you've finished all of the Story Missions and then played through the three multiplayer modes (Incursion, Meltdown and Capture), Battleborn becomes stale fast.
It's great to live in the fantasy that playing through the same missions over and over again simply to level up is a fun time, however it's not. Progression wouldn't feel like as big of a burden if there was more depth in the game's competitive multiplayer experience, or even a bit more in its Story Mode. I put more of the blame on multiplayer than anything …show more content…

Both become stale and repetitive fairly fast and quite frankly, it's surprising that Gearbox didn't add more modes and maps to competitive multiplayer because of how fast you can blaze through Story Mode.
Competitive multiplayer is what keeps gamers coming back in many of the best shooters out there today, and Battleborn's experience flat out doesn't right now. It's extremely thin and almost feels incomplete. Think of this question, "what will keep me coming back to this game after I'm 15 or 20 hours in?" The short answer is not much. Perhaps you are a glutton for grinding and become obsessed with the seemingly infinite miles of progression in Battleborn, and if so, more power to you.
If reviews of Battleborn were conducted maybe six months from now, this experience might be more fleshed out, particularly on the competitive multiplayer side of things, and I hope it is. However, as this game stands now, Battleborn is a brief game that largely stumbles at the hands of a thin competitive multiplayer and grindy progression

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