Sales of Gearbox Software’s team-based shooter Battleborn are currently ahead of the where the first entry in the studio’s hugely popular Borderlands series was at the same point in time.
The studio’s creative director Randy Varnell said during a Twitch live stream (via VideoGamer) that the current sales performance for the new IP was looking good and that Gearbox is being “cautiously optimistic” going forward, comparing it to the launch period of Borderlands back in 2009.
The launch has been pretty good. We do a lot of comparisons back to the first Borderlands back in 2009 and that launch felt a lot similar for us. Ultimately Borderlands extremely successful new game for us, and even Borderlands 1 went on to sell, I think, almost 7, 8 million units in its lifetime. Battleborn is actually tracking just ahead of where Borderlands was on the sales, and we think it’s going to be a game that is going to work like that. A decent, solid launch. We’re seeing steady and growing user counts on all three platforms, and hoping that word of mouth is going to take us even further.
Battleborn is just the first of three MOBA-inspired titles due to launch throughout 2016. Blizzard Entertainment’s Overwatch has just wrapped up its final beta test ahead of a full release on May 24 and Epic Games’ Paragon is due to release at some point over the next seven months. All three will undoubtedly be battling for the crown of best squad-based shooter, but who emerges victorious is anyone’s guess.
We thought Battleborn was a solid, albeit slightly shallow and repetitive affair in our review, but there’s every chance future updates will rectify any current issues.
