2K Shuts Down Battleborn Servers

Battleborn is no more. The team-based shooter from Gearbox Software and 2K Games shut its doors for good last night, when servers went offline. The move was initially announced in November 2019, three and a half years after its launch and almost two and a half years after it went free-to-play.

While Battleborn was available on multiple platforms, its Steam traffic paints a grim tale. It cracked the 100 concurrent players mark just twice in the last three years, and even before the shutdown notice was barely averaging more than a dozen concurrents at any time.

Maybe it debuted at the wrong time -- three weeks before Overwatch -- or maybe it just lacked compelling gameplay -- I only tried it briefly for our First Look video and it didn't hook me -- but Battleborn at least had a brief window where it seemed like it could be successful. That's more than can be said about some games in the genre.