Credit: Gearbox Software/2K Games
The multiplayer game only has a little over a year of life left.
There’s a certain poetic tragedy to live service multiplayer games. Even if they’re incredibly popular in their heyday, sooner or later time will catch up with them. Players move on to newer games, new content additions become fewer and farther between, and companies don’t want to pay to keep the servers up. It seems that Gearbox and 2K’s ill-fated multiplayer shooter, Battleborn, will have its number coming up very soon.
2K announced yesterday on the official Battleborn Twitter that the game is entering its “sunsetting” process. Starting February 24, 2020, players will no longer be able to purchase virtual currency from the game’s in-game store. The game’s servers will still be available and usable for about a year after that, but in January of 2021, 2K plans to close down the servers entirely. Once the servers are down, Battleborn will no longer be playable at all, and the client will be de-listed from all online storefronts. 2K is hoping to dedicate the resources that have been keeping Battleborn afloat to newer projects.
It is a shame, really. Battleborn had some cool gameplay ideas, as well as some very interesting character designs, but its close proximity to the launch of Overwatch sucked away all its hype from the very beginning. Perhaps someday we’ll see these characters again in another 2K or Gearbox project, at least in cameo roles.
