Gearbox announced that Battleborn is getting a free-to-play version of the game. The Battleborn Free Trial is a whole new way to experience Battleborn without having to pay a dime. The Free Trial encompasses UNLIMITED Competitive Multiplayer play, including access to all four competitive multiplayer modes, a rotating roster of free playable heroes, and the same character and account growth and progression you would find in the full game.
Yes, with the Free Trial, you can play UNLIMITED Competitive Multiplayer matches, with no time limits or artificial level caps. Everyone who downloads the Free Trial will have access to all four competitive modes: Incursion, Meltdown, Capture, and Face-Off, with a fifth mode, Supercharge, arriving on Thursday, June 22, 2017.
Download Now!
Steam: http://2kgam.es/BBsteam
Xbox One: http://2kgam.es/BBXBOX
PlayStation 4: http://2kgam.es/BBPS4
Take a look at Battleborn and the Free Trial with Battleborn’s Creative Director, Randy Varnell, in this Battleborn Developer Overview.
Table of contents
FAQ
About the Free Trial
The Free Trial is now available globally on Steam and Xbox One, and is available in the Americas on PS4. For Sony Europe and Sony Japan, the Free Trial will be available starting June 13, 2017.
The Battleborn Free Trial is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox one, and Steam. Search for Battleborn in the PlayStation, Xbox, or Steam stores and head to the store page. Each page will have a “Try Now” button to download the Free Trial.
PS Plus and Xbox Live Gold memberships are required to play the Free Trial.
We love that you’re enjoying Battleborn’s Competitive Multiplayer! If you’re interested in unlocking more heroes, further customizing your favorite hero, or even playing the Story Mode missions, there’s a whole Marketplace to choose from. Keep reading to see how you can upgrade your Battleborn experience.
Upgrading Battleborn
Upgrading Battleborn means getting access to the full base game, including unlocking all 25 base characters, all eight Story Mode missions and the Prologue, and permanent access to private matches.
When you upgrade Battleborn from the Free Trial to the full base game, all of your player progression stats – Command Rank and Character Rank – will carry over. Character challenges and masteries will also carry over, and you will be granted access to earn the character masteries that are only available through Story Mode missions.
PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Steam achievements or trophies will also be granted upon upgrading to the full game. In order to complete the transfer of challenges, masteries, achievements, and trophies, complete the task one more time by hopping into a match or mission to complete the action (ex. get a kill, play as a Peacekeeper) and earn the corresponding reward.
To upgrade digitally, the full game can be found in the PlayStation, Xbox, and Steam digital storefronts. If you want to hoof it to get a physical disc, there’s a chance you can snag the base game for a nice discount at your favorite retailer.
Remember: on console, if playing the game with a physical disc, the disc is required to be in the console tray to play the full game. Ejecting the disc from the console tray will revert the game to the Free Trial version with unlimited Competitive Multiplayer gameplay AND any a la carte content you purchased. You WILL keep any a la carte purchases you may have made, such as characters, taunts, or Story Operations. Pop the disc back in and you’re back to the full version.
Season Pass content is available within the Battleborn in-game Marketplace for anyone to purchase, whether you have the full game or the Fee Trial. This includes all five replayable Story Operations and heroes 26 through 30 (Alani, Pendles, Ernest, Kid Ultra, and Beatrix). Each Story Operation also includes a variety of skins, taunts, and titles that you can unlock by playing the Operation.
Great question! If you upgrade to the full game or purchase the Season Pass bundle, AND you already own some of the content in the bundle, you will be credited the value of that content in Credits, the currency earned in-game.
For example, if you already own three Battleborn heroes (let’s say Thorn, Boldur, and Alani), and want to upgrade to the full base game, you will be granted earned Credits for the heroes that are part of the base game (Thorn and Boldur). Alani is a DLC hero (heroes 26 through 30) and was part of the Season Pass, not the base game. As such, her Credits value would not be included when upgrading to the base game.
Not a problem! There are many a la carte options to suit how you want to play. Check out the in-game Marketplace to get as many extras or as few as you want. From boosters that will increase your XP gain for a day, to the full package of Season Pass content complete with five Story Operations and heroes 26 through 30. The choice is yours.
In the Marketplace, you’ll find several items that can be purchased with Credits earned in-game or Platinum premium currency.
*Battleborn Heroes
*Cosmetics skins and taunts
*Gear packs
*XP and Loot Boosters
*Additional Loadouts and Bank pages
*Story Operations, individually or as part of the Season Pass bundle
*And more!
New Player Experience
What can I expect as a new player or if I haven’t played Battleborn in a while?
There have been TONS of updates, additions, and changes to Battleborn since launch – Over 1,600 changes, in fact! Keep going to see what the big changes are for new players.
Novice Queue – With the launch of the Free Trial, we’re also introducing a queue specifically for new players. This queue was created just so new and lower-rank players can learn the ropes without having to go up against more experienced players. Even if you’re a quick learner or an experienced MOBA player, we wanted to give you enough time to find your Battleborn play style and favorite heroes.
Don’t worry, you won’t be stuck in the Novice Queue forever. Once you reach Command Rank 20, the Novice Queue will disappear and you will be able to join other Battleborn players in the regular queues.
Matchmaking is an ever-evolving process that we’re continually working on. As more players join Battleborn, we will keep refining this process using players’ Elo ranking to make it the best experience possible.
Free Hero Rotation – Each week six of Battleborn’s 30 unique heroes will be available for everyone to play. This weekly rotation will give you the opportunity to play all of Battleborn’s heroes and find your favorites. If you love a hero and don’t want to wait for them to be back in the rotation, you can permanently unlock that hero from the in-game Marketplace.
Training Modes – Prior to the Free Trial, we introduced brand new training modes to help players of all skill levels master Battleborn.
- Incursion Tutorial: Build up your Competitive Multiplayer skills and learn the key elements of PVP combat in Battleborn with the Incursion Mode Tutorial.
- The Dojo: Take each and every Battleborn hero for a test drive! Learn how to slice, dice, blast, smash, and rocket your way through waves of minions. The Dojo allows you to try out each Battleborn hero without having to unlock them in the Marketplace or wait for them to be on the free rotation.
Battleborn Veteran Players
What if I already own Battleborn? What’s in it for me?
The goal of the Free Trial is to open Battleborn Competitive Multiplayer up for everyone in the world and grow the player base. We hope this endeavor leads to tons of new players for you to play with and against in PVP.
More so, it has been a joy and a privilege to interact with the Battleborn community over the past year, and we want to show you how much you mean to us. We consider you our Founders and we’ve created something special just for you. Everyone who purchased and played the retail version of Battleborn prior to the release of the Free Trial on June 6th, 2017, has been granted a Founder’s Bonus. When you log into Battleborn, the Founder’s Bonus will already be granted to your account. Head to your Command center to open the new loot packs, equip your title, and spend that sweet Platinum.
FOUNDER’S BONUS CONTENT
- 1,000 Platinum
- 50,000 Credits
- Exclusive “Founder” player title
- Gold skins for Mellka and Deande
- 5 Core Loot Packs
- 1 of each Command Faction Pack (5 total)
- 1 Exclusive “Founder Loot Pack” that includes…
- 1 guaranteed piece of legendary gear
- 1 guaranteed piece of legendary boss gear
- 2 guaranteed pieces of common (or better) gear
- Guaranteed exclusive legendary “Shard of Solus” gear item (a 0 activation cost LLC Shard Generator)
- 4 guaranteed Flair items including exclusive “Founder’s Crown” Flair item
How do I know if I received the Founder’s Bonus?
Everyone who owned and played Battleborn prior to June 6th, 2017 should be granted the Founder’s Bonus. To confirm you received the Founder’s Bonus, head to the Command center. On the top left-hand of your screen, you should see an additional 1,000 Platinum and 50,000 Credits by your account name.
Under the Gear tab, you will see several new loot packs, including one named “Founder Loot Pack.” If you cannot access the Gear tab, just jump in a match or two, rank up, and then the Gear tab should be unlocked. The Gear tab is locked for any player below Command Rank 3.
The Founder title can be found and equipped from the Career tab. Mellka and Deande’s gold skins can be viewed in their respective character pages, and equipped during the character select phase of a match or mission.
If you’re a Founder and having trouble accessing the Founder’s Bonus content, please reach out to us at 2K Support.
Wait, Flair? What’s that?
Flair is a new cosmetic addition to Battleborn! Special pieces of gear will now have visual components that show up on your hero during a match or mission. There are all kinds of flair items, such as ears, silly hats, horns, and many more to further customize your hero and give them even more attitude. There is a chance to obtain a piece of gear with Flair from any loot pack although gear with Flair is a guaranteed drop from the Magnus Pack, a new loot pack introduced with the arrival of the Free Trial.
To see your Flair on your hero, use Shards to activate that piece of Gear during the match. Once you activate that piece of gear, the Flair will show up on your hero. There are three main types of gear: Horns, Ears, and Hats. If you have more than one piece of gear with that particular Flair type in a Loadout, Flair from the gear you most recently activated will be displayed. You can have one of each type active at a time.
Pre-Announcement Content
Update: June 6, 2017
With yesterday’s patch, there are a lot of changes to the game that indicate that Battleborn is taking a free-to-play approach with their so-called Trial version. So if we bot up the game the first noticeable thing is that for everyone who already has the game, there is a new title available. It not only looks all shiny and new but also implies that you are an early adopter as this title is named founder.
So that’s our first hint, then we have a new description of Draft Mode where it’s mentioned that you at least need 14 characters unlocked. So everyone who is going to play this trial version will have to unlock their heroes in some way. I don’t know if this is done through the old challenges or if you have to obtain a certain amount of credits. But you can also unlock the full game by purchasing Battleborn as with the winter update everyone got access to all the characters from the get-go. And talking about unlocking the game, if we look at the new Steam specification for Battleborn, the game’s card now has a label that points out that this purchase is a DLC pack, and if we have a closer look at the title of this pack its called Battleborn FGU, or in other words Full Game Unlock.
If we go back to the game we see that the Marketplace is now featured on the main menu, giving more direct access to the in-game store. Which hopefully boosts the sales of the micro-transactions. Besides the usual items like premium skins & taunts, we now find more stuff in the store. There are now more bundles and new items like the VIP pass, finishers, and platinum prizes for gear packs. Gearbox introduced new ways to customize your character with these hats, ears & horns. So enough ways to generate some cash for the game. I don’t mind if this means we get a zillion players into this game and have short queue times. Also, more cash money will probably also mean more DLC and I’m hoping that’s a season 2 with more characters and story operations.
So this is my assumption and I’m already seeing some other threads that point out some of these things, but let’s see what GBX will announce in their stream later today. I heard that they will have some surprises that are not part of the Patch notes they put out.
Update: April 27, 2017
A new ad banner briefly showed up on the Xbox dashboard promoting the opportunity to play Battleborn for free. Gearbox Software has mentioned in the past that they are working on a trial version of the game. With this new ad popping up does this mean we can expect it soonish, maybe May 3rd as a 1 year anniversary? If we are getting a new stand-alone build of the game will this free-2-play version also contain some fixes and (balance) changes? On the other hand, this could also be a free weekend experience, I don’t think this is a “Games with Gold” deal where you get the game for free if you have a gold membership.
Update: March 30, 2017
It has been a while since we heard anything about a trial version of Battleborn. While some gamers suggest the game should go free to play it seems like Gearbox Software is still working on try and buy version of their game. It’s still unclear how this model is taking shape, but I do hope it will bring more gamers to Battleborn.
Original Article (October 4, 2016)
A hot topic for some time is the question; “is Battleborn going free-to-play?”. While this recently did miracles for the game Evolve. The community has been wondering if 2K Games and Gearbox Software will take the same route and go from a paid package to an F2P model. Battleborn already has some micro-transactions in the form of skins & taunts that are common for those types of games.
During the Battleborn AMA on the unofficial Battleborn Discord, the question was thrown at the present developers.
Is BB going F2P any time soon?
That’s one of those things we can’t answer until we answer. So, I can’t give you a definite on that. We’ve definitely discussed it, along with other plans, as something that might be good at bringing more players into our community.
Randy Varnell – Creative Director
A response that makes sense, but recently Kotaku posted an article stating that they got info that Battleborn is going F2P in November. This article led to the President of Gearbox Software commenting on Twitter that these reports are false.
We have some unannounced plans to do a trial version of the game that would be free and from which retail can be purchased along with DLC.
Randy Pitchford (@DuvalMagic) 29 september 2016
So no real Free-2-Play version of Battleborn is coming out soon. They are looking into a trial version of the game which should introduce the game to new players. How this model is going to play out we have to wait and see. Is it going to be like Paladins where you can download a base game and buy more content along the way has to be seen.