The second, more simply, is to enjoy the time you have. If a game you love is set to be sent to the great digital graveyard in the cloud, speak up, contact management at the studios and publishers, be respectful, but see if you can make a change to ensure these games live on for years to come. The first is straightforward: if you have a voice, use it. So, what we need to do moving forward is two-fold. Heck, even current discs work less as a guaranteed store of data and more as a license that can be revoked at any time. Think of it like this: especially as we move towards an all-digital future, there is no guarantee what will happen to the games we love. I understand not keeping the servers open – it can be an incredibly costly task for what amounts to a small player base – but allowing for fan servers and offline play can increase the lifetime of these games perpetually. This is why I think it is important that consumers advocate for game preservation and companies listen to their fans. These can range from small indie titles to games with a massive audience, budget and scope that simply saw their player bases die off as time went by. There are some that will die off earlier (Ninja Theory recently announced that they have pulled support for Bleeding Edge – a game I adore – but at least in the interim servers will remain online). There are several games that have delighted players this generation that 10, 15, 20 years down the line may no longer be playable. To put it another way, Battleborn fizzled out after less than five years because it struggled to capture the audience. Yet, after the servers went offline, barring a leak of the source code and a fan server initiative, it is likely that no aspect of this game will ever be playable again, and no matter how you slice it, that is a total letdown. But what it undeniably was was a game that a team of hundreds of people poured their hearts and souls into a game that amassed an ultimately small but nevertheless loyal audience that put in – in some cases – upwards of thousands of hours, learning its mechanics and the ins and outs of every single hero a game that with a patch could have been played offline in at least some capacity. In fact, if it wasn’t for the title screen, it was almost as if the game never existed at all, and that for me is the crux of my issue with how 2K and Gearbox handled this game.īattleborn was not the game I wanted it to be, it was not the game my friend and co-worker Gareth wanted it to be in his review, hell, it probably wasn’t the game a number of you reading wanted it to be. Even the credits, filled with the names of the people who poured their hearts into the game and gave loving dedications to their friends and family, were gone to time. You could no longer access any part of the game. When the servers were pulled on January 31st at 12pm EST, that was it. So, finally relenting, I placed the disc into my Xbox Series X and decided to play through the campaign once and for all and see what Battleborn had to offer before it was too late.įor those unaware, every aspect of Battleborn, including its single-player campaign and simulated multiplayer experiences with AI, are locked behind servers. However, a post on the ResetEra forums made it clear midway through this month, I had little time left to experience Battleborn. Eventually, I re-organized the games, and removed the disc from its sticky, poorly maintained case (remember, it was a used game) and placed it in a binder, where it sat mostly forgotten. I truly intended to jump into the game, but if memory serves correct I was pre-occupied with Control and thus back into the backlog it fell. In November of that year, it was announced that Battleborn would be taken offline in January of 2021. For a sum total of $1.25, I was now one of the millions of owners of Battleborn, and then… I promptly forgot I even picked the game up. My eyes were drawn to the box-art, and I was blissfully unaware the game had ever gone free to play, so I picked it up and decided to buy it. Among the many spoils were Ryse: Son of Rome, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, several older Call of Duty and sports titles, and in the very corner, in a poorly treated box, a copy of Gearbox’s once-upon-a-time next big hit, Battleborn. A large, laminated sign boldly proclaimed: Xbox Games, 4 for $5. A small display stand sat towards the front of the store, with numerous Xbox One titles nestled in its shelves.
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