Between the rush of multiplayer-only shooters this generation and Overwatch’s gigantic hole that’s sucked up much of the multiplayer fanbase into its web, the stars just didn’t seem aligned for Battleborn to hold much of an audience.
Gearbox Studio’s attempt at the MOBA genre, with mixes of PvP, PvE, and single player gameplay, was received by critics with mixed results, receiving an average score of 70 on OpenCritic. Many felt that the game was unbalanced and a jumbled mess, while other felt the game tied up the three types of gameplay quite nicely.
It doesn’t look like Battleborn’s made any sort of impact, though. In the last 24 hours as of July 8th, the Steam Charts have clocked Battleborn with a peak player count of 742. Not 742k, just 742 people playing at once during the game’s peak hours. This is a huge jump downard from the 12,000 players the game originally clocked in with shortly after launch.
Originally, Gearbox Studio’s Creative Director Randy Varnell had stated in a Twitch stream that Battleborn’s sales were outpacing that of the first Borderlands, which showed high hopes for the property. Alas, Overwatch proved too much for them, though, and the game’s not able to hold many people on its servers for long it seems.