Battleborn launched this past summer to a fairly lukewarm response in terms of sales. The game received good reviews but it seemed as if no one wanted to play, possibly due to the fact a somewhat similar game by the name of Overwatch was releasing very close to Battleborn. It also could've been the fact that they were burnt by 2K's last multiplayer-centric game, Evolve, which was subject to much controversy after release and the game lost most of its player base in the first month.
2K has acknowledged the fact that the game is doing pretty poorly at retail both in statements and by dropping the price significantly hoping that'll catch people's eyes and get them to buy it.
Following in the steps of Evolve which recently went free-to-play on PC, Kotaku reports that a source is telling them that Battleborn will be going free-to-play as soon as this November but that date is subject to change. The source claimed that the announcement is set to be made in mid-November and may reward players who paid for the game originally while opening the doors for anyone else who wishes to jump in.
The source also claims Gearbox wanted to make the hero shooter free from the start but 2K opted to sell the game at retail for $60 which may have been a mistake.
Parent company of 2K, Take-Two, has hinted that the game may live on in the free-to-play world before in earnings calls. CEO Strauss Zelnick stated "While the game launched to solid reviews, its performance in the market has been below our expectations,” Zelnick said. “We think there remains an opportunity to grow the audience for this unique experience over time and 2K will continue to drive engagement and recurrent consumer spending on the title through add-on content and virtual currency.”
Battleborn has been struggling to keep its current playerbase happy as well, data shows that the number of concurrent players is below a thousand and that it looks as if it'll continue to drop. So maybe this is the best move for 2K in order to keep the game alive and healthy.
As previously mentioned, 2K made the 4V1 monster vs. hunter game, Evolve, free-to-play on PC earlier in 2016 after the players lost faith in the game and moved on and others strayed away from purchasing the game after hearing about the drop in players. The strategy revived Evolve and has allowed the game to continue to live on with many players logging into the game every day.
The source also reported that People Can Fly's 2011 first person shooter, Bulletstorm, will be remastered for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. This was also backed up by a Brazil ratings board listing for the remaster that surfaced earlier today. The game was also leaked at E3 this year when a USB was given to press and had a mysterious file named "Bulletstorm Remaster" on it. You can probably expect an official announcement very soon.
Do you think this is a wise choice for 2K and would you play Battleborn if it went free-to-play? Let us know in the comments below.
