Despite a small crowd of diehards who went so far as to organize events in an attempt to save the game, Battleborn seems destined to go down in history as a high-profile flop. Two years ago, developer Gearbox halted updates to the already-shot hero shooter. Today, publisher 2K announced plans to sunset the game entirely.
On Twitter, 2K said that in January 2021 Battleborn’s servers will be deactivated, and the game will become unplayable. It’s already been de-listed from stores. In February of next year, 2K will pull the plug on players’ ability to purchase virtual currency. In the gap between the money store turning off its lights and the end of the line in 2021, players will still be able to spend currency they previously purchased or continue to earn.
Aside from the currency stuff, “nothing else in the game will change until January 2021, when the servers go offline,” according to a post on 2K’s support site.
But when 2021 rolls around, it will be curtains for the hero battler that might have been born, but never got a chance to truly live. From the get-go, Gearbox’s ambitious fusion of hero shooter characterization and MOBA-inspired mechanics suffered from low server populations and confusion over what exactly it was. Three weeks after Battleborn came out, Overwatch, a more straightforward hero shooter with a much bigger marketing budget, cannon-balled onto the scene and stole every last cent of its lunch money. Developers who worked on Battleborn poured countless gallons of passion into it, but in the end, it wasn’t enough. Now, like so many other online games that never quite found their groove, it’s set to disappear entirely—yet another game the industry has failed to preserve in any meaningful way.
“Once the servers are offline in January 2021, Battleborn won’t be playable in any way,” said 2K.