Huge Battleborn Update Adds New Mode, Unlocks All Characters and More

Today Bat­tle­born will receive its largest patch with the Win­ter Update. The update includes every­thing from changes to PVP game modes and a new char­ac­ter to redesigned UI and tech­ni­cal improvements.

There have been quite a few changes to help new­com­ers. Pre­vi­ous­ly every char­ac­ter could be unlocked by lev­el­ing up Com­mand Rank or com­plet­ing a chal­lenge, but now they will instant­ly unlock after com­plet­ing the pro­logue. Play­ers will also have access to a new game mode called Dojo. In Dojo play­ers start at lev­el 5, lev­el up faster and are giv­en 100,000 Shards. Play­ers then are free to test new char­ac­ter builds and Gear lod­outs on waves of min­ions. Anoth­er tool for begin­ners is the new Ver­sus Tuto­r­i­al. The new tuto­r­i­al will teach play­ers the ins and outs of online com­pet­i­tive play such as the Helix sys­tem, build­ables and minions.

Return­ing play­ers also get a few changes tar­get­ed at them. Com­mand Rank has been raised from 105 to 150 and rewards will be giv­en for every rank past 100. Core loot packs will be giv­en out most lev­els, a leg­endary loot pack will be giv­en every 10 lev­els along with new titles. Char­ac­ter Ranks have been raised from 15 to 20. Fac­tion loot packs and new char­ac­ter relat­ed titles will be giv­en out for every rank past 15. Achieve­ments such as First Among Heroes and Bat­tle­born will be earned at the orig­i­nal max ranks of 15 and 100. 

A new quest sys­tem is being added. There will now be “main quests” and “dai­ly quests”. Main quests are one-time com­plet­ed task meant to train new play­ers. Dai­ly quest are three quest that change every­day. Com­plet­ing any quest will reward the play­er with var­i­ous things such as in-game currency. 

In PVP a pick and ban sys­tem has been imple­ment­ed. Now teams will vote to ban cer­tain char­ac­ters before a match begins and in turn have to work around the oppos­ing team’s bans. Pri­vate match­es have the addi­tion­al option of Cap­tain Bans in which a sin­gle per­son on each team has con­trol over bans.

While there have been a num­ber of changes to all PVP game modes, Melt­down has received the largest change. Melt­down will now have a new end game sec­tion called Finale. When a team reach­es 300 score or 20 min­utes have passed, Ultra Min­ions will spawn for the remain­der of the match and the first team to score wins the match. The lead­ing team will have advan­tages such as stronger Ultra Min­ions or uncon­test­ed waves depend­ing on how big the lead a team has. 

On the tech­ni­cal side there have been sev­er­al major changes. The UI for almost every­thing have been redesigned to look and dis­play infor­ma­tion bet­ter. Those on con­sole now have choice between 1080p and a soild 30 FPS or 1080P and up to 60 FPS. The one excep­tions being the Xbox One when run­ning splitscreen co-op. PlaySta­tion 4 Pro users have an the addi­tion­al option of 4K and 30 FPS. All con­soles will have the option between min­i­mum and nor­mal par­ti­cle effects.

Beat­rix, the last planned Bat­tle­born char­ac­ter, is now avail­able for Sea­son Pass and Dig­i­tal Deluxe own­ers. She is a sup­port char­ac­ter focused on debuff­ing ene­mies and doing dam­age over time.  Her full abil­i­ty list can been seen in the video above. Beat­rix offi­cial­ly launch­es Jan­u­ary 26 and can be unlocked for free with in-game currency.

Final­ly the last big news is the release of Mike vs. Bat­tle School. The DLC focus­es on Oscar Mike as he tries to redeem him­self after being exiled from Plan­et Mike, the home plan­et of all Mike clones. Sea­son Pass hold­ers can down­load today. Those with­out the sea­son can buy the DLC stand­alone or with a Sea­son Pass.

For the com­plete list of changes includ­ing char­ac­ter and gear bal­anc­ing click here.