Battleborn has had an rough lifespan, which is made all the more surprising when considering how well other Gearbox properties, such as the Borderlands series, had done by 2016. However, it seems that competition from other games in the genre, like Overwatch and Team Fortress 2, have brought Battleborn's run to an early end.

As a result of the underwhelming life of the game, Battleborn will be going offline as Gearbox begins discontinuing the services provided by the game. The first steps will begin in February 2020 and continue until the servers finally shut off in January 2021, as 2K Games and Gearbox begin to move forward on future projects.

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Announced on the 2K support site as well as in a tweet by the official Battleborn Twitter account, the game is currently undergoing "sunsetting" procedures in anticipation for the 2021 shutdown. To begin this process, the game has already been removed from online stores, meaning that no more players will be able to buy digital copies of Battleborn. This won't effect physical sales, and any players who currently own a digital copy will still be able to play for the time being, but there are changes coming to the online service as Gearbox moves forward with the "sunsetting" plans.

The next step in the process, taking place in February 2020, will be the removal of the premium currency known as Platinum that can be used to buy in-game items like skins. After the Platinum is removed, there will be no more changes made to the game until it goes offline in January 2021, not that there have been many changes since development stopped abruptly in 2017. Additionally, players who had already purchased Platinum before the ability to buy is removed can still spend their currency before the game shuts down completely.

It doesn't come as much of a surprise that 2K will no longer be continuing service on Battleborn when considering the rocky reception the game received on release thanks in part to shaky marketing as well as stiff competition. Pilling that on with the underwhelming review scores Battleborn earned when it hit stores, lends credence to the decision to pull the plug on a title that only ever managed to garner a small community around it.

Battleborn is available now in physical form for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

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Source: 2K Support Website (via Eurogamer)