Quirky Gearbox arena shooter Battleborn continues its slow trickle of pre-release information with the reveal of three new quirky, quirky heroes battling for control of the last remaining star in the universe. Whiskey Foxtrot is a space marine with a purple edge and some tinkered weapons from the Peacekeeper faction of Battleborn – his origins are so far mysterious, but it stands to reason that if you’re going to have space marines in your game you might as well have a chaotic one too. Kelvin is a civilization of microorganisms taking shape as an ice golem, which brings up all kinds of questions about their politics. Shayne and Aurox, as their names suggest, make up Battleborn’s first two-in-one hero. If you like the idea of a teenage punk wearing an alien space monster like a hat, then they’re your people.
Like many of its competitors, Battleborn’s combat design is a mix of melee and ranged attacks, with each hero made up, in MOBA fashion, of a moveset of specific abilities. Whiskey Foxtrot’s burst-shot rifle and sticky grenades are already familiar to FPS players, while Kelvin prefers to attack its enemies with icy ground-and-pound punches. The latter also has an ability called “Ice Wall,” which will perhaps frighten DOTA 2 players with its ability to stun enemies instead of merely slow them.
As might be expected of two heroes, Shayne and Aurox are designed with what could be one of the most versatile movesets in the game: Shayne can use her boomerang to hit people at range, but Aurox, the heavy melee hitter, can teleport to targeted enemies to bring his smashing action to a whole new range. He’s also capable of dragging targets back to Shayne, and the two of them can also cloak.
Battleborn is due for release May 3rd on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows.
Between this title and Overwatch, we’ve got Gearbox-brand quirky and Blizzard-brand quirky. Do you have a preference?
