Oh Battleborn, we hardly knew ye. A multiplayer shooter with a quasi-Borderlands visual style, Battleborn launched at perhaps the worst time possible, less than one month before the Activision Blizzard behemoth Overwatch. One year after its 2016 release, Battleborn went free to play. After that, Gearbox announced a staggered shutdown of the entire FPS, pulling it from sale in 2019, and finally deactivating the Battleborn servers in January 2021. Between Overwatch, Fortnite, PUBG, and emergent goliaths like Valorant and Apex Legends, Battleborn didn’t stand much of a chance. But now, more than two years after it was pronounced dead, Battleborn is back, and you can play it today.
Welcome to Battleborn Reborn, an ambitious modding project which restores the single-player component of the Gearbox FPS game and lets you play the entire campaign in full. You can play as any member of Battleborn’s colorful cast, and engage in all eight story missions, all five operations missions, and the entire prologue section. If you thought Battleborn was completely dead and buried, the revival, it seems, starts here.
Created and maintained by a collective of modders, overseen by project lead ‘Gwog,’ if you want to play Battleborn Reborn you need a legitimate copy of Battleborn itself. If you already own the game on Steam and have it in your library, you can access the mod that way. Alternatively, you can buy a copy of Battleborn from a variety of online stores. Once you have the game, Reborn is relatively simple to install.
As it stands, only the single-player component of Battleborn is available again, but the Reborn team says that PvP functionality is “being worked on.” So, if you missed Battleborn the first time around, or want to give it another try, get the mod and find out whether this is really a forgotten gem. Maybe Battleborn is the beloved shooter we’ve been missing all along.
Alternatively, check out some of the other best multiplayer games, or maybe the best co-op games available on PC right now.
Also, make sure to follow us on Google News for daily PC gaming news, guides, and reviews.