Gearbox's first-person hero shooter Battleborn is one of those games that really had trouble taking off properly, not least due to Blizzard's release of Overwatch, and now the company announced that the servers will shut down in 2021.
Well, initially it seemed fine but Blizzard's release schedule, along with their hefty marketing budget for Overwatch, pretty much stomped over Battleborn to the point where matchmaking was difficult just one year into the release.
As things stand, Gearbox will stop selling Battleborn's premium virtual currency on 24 February 2020. However, the game's servers will continue to run and the game will be playable until January 2021, after which it's bye-bye.
In case you've got yourself a vault of Platinum stashed away somewhere, you should know that you'll be able to spend it freely until the official shutdown. Battleborn players will also be able to grind it out in-game, so everything except purchases will be business as usual.
That means that nothing changes in terms of Battleborn's features, so if you need time to say your goodbyes, you'll have ample time to do so. And it won't cost you either unless you choose to throw some bucks Gearbox's way.
Even though initially denied by Gearbox, Battleborn switched to the free-to-play, battle pass model of monetisation, but that obviously didn't work that great either. We don't have the exact numbers to gauge whether and how much it might have extended its life, but it doesn't appear like it did, at least not significantly.
2K Games
Gearbox ended up calling it a free trial version, because it doesn't grant freeloaders access to Battleborn's story missions - that is reserved for paying customers and founders.
