Battleborn competitive modes explained, new character and open beta in 2016

Paris Games Week is turning up a few bits and pieces and Gearbox has revealed more details of Battleborn‘s competitive game modes

Battleborn comes with three team based competitive multiplayer modes, Capture which is a capture and hold deathmatch, Meltdown where heroes must guide minions to their death in the incinerator to score points, and Incursion where heroes must defend a base from AI controlled minions.

To demonstrate all these a new trailer has been released.

The big news for everyone is that the Battleborn open beta test is “coming in 2016” which may be a little later than some might have hoped.

In other testing news, Gearbox will beholding a small closed technical beta test on Thursday 29 October where players can try out Battleborn’s Meltdown competitive multiplayer mode and a new Story Mission called “The Algorithm” with 15 of the game’s 25 playable heroes. Testers can get heir name down for that here. Pre-loads of the client have already started for those accepted.

As far as characters are concerned, gearbox has also revealed ISIC, the powerful spirit-mech, as a new playable character who is described as:

“Once the lead manufacturing Magnus of Minion Robotics, ISIC abandoned his post to crash reality itself through the application of unthinkably complex code. Though debugged by Kleese, this Magnus is still regarded as among the most nihilistic and terrifying of the Battleborn“

ARCHETYPE: Defender

WEAPONS:

• Charge Cannon:  ISIC’s Charge Cannon fires off rapid blasts for minor damage, or can be charged for a devastating burst of energy at the expense of his movement speed.
• Energy Aegis: ISIC’s powerful wrist-mounted energy makes him a capable front-line defender.

ABILITIES:

• Rotating Wards: A series of five protective wards that spin around ISIC at high-velocity, absorbing damage.
• Grapple Beam: Fire a beam to lock into a target and watch the fun unfold as a five-ton war machine is yanked across the battlefield at a target. Anything caught in ISIC’s path takes damage as well. The results aren’t pretty.
• Omega Strike: ISIC turns into a colossal turret. Sure, he’s slow as hell while Omega Strike is active, but who needs mobility when the path to victory is as simple as 1.) aim giant gun, 2.) shoot giant gun, 3.) villain laugh?