Launching at the most inopportune time Gearbox Software's hero shooter Battleborn hit store shelves right when Overwatch hype was at its peak.
Blizzard's first push into the FPS market had everyone latching onto their strong blend of story and character development in a situation where people were excited to see how the company would crack the stagnating shooter genre. Because of this, Battleborn launched "below expectations" seeing the full-price retail game being slashed to 1/3rd of its original price in just a few short months.
Due to lower than expected player numbers, most thought the title to eventually switch to a F2P format similar to Evolve following its own difficulties reaching the masses. Though an independent source seemingly confirmed the switch to publications yesterday, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford soon took to Twitter to denounce the rumors.
Though citing how the reports were 'reckless' and completely 'false', Pitchford went on to clarify that a trial version is in the works with an announcement likely coming 'in a few months'. With no word on exactly how the trial version would work, he went on to reiterate to Kotaku's Jason Schreier how he wouldn't call it a 'timed' demo.
So what will it be? 2K games have, in the past, commented on how they're looking to expand the Battleborn playerbase over time with additional maps, story content and multiplayer modes; but they've also expressed interest in the 'virtual currency' market. Maybe a 'lite' of the title locking out certain content or allowing players to purchase access to maps and modes separately as they become interested?
Only Gearbox know the answer. We'll have to wait see.
