Battleborn is a first-person-shooter with a deep roster of 25 playable heroes. Every hero has their own personality and comes equipped with their own unique weapons and powers. Through Battleborn’s accelerated character growth system, players will fully experience each hero’s leveling progression in a single story mission or multiplayer match.

Battleborn is set in a distant future, where nearly every star in the universe has gone dark at the hands of a mysterious enemy. Solus, the last star, is the only beacon of hope for the universe’s surviving population. The fading of stars has led to a great war among those desperate for the last remaining resources. Heroes, called Battleborn, fight for the dominance of their unique factions as all life in the universe teeters on the brink of extinction. Now, the mysterious enemy is threatening to finish what they’ve started, and only an unlikely alliance between the universe’s most powerful heroes can stop them.

Alani – the first of five free new heroes coming to Battleborn – is available early starting today on all platforms for Digital Deluxe owners, Season Pass holders, and folks that played in the PlayStation 4 Open Beta. She will be available for everyone else to unlock for free starting May 31. The more damage Alani dishes out with her water-based attacks, the more she can heal her allies. Get a first-look at her in action in two new gameplay videos, which you can download or embed using the links below.

But, Alani is just the beginning. There are four more free DLC heroes in the works, including Pendles, the 27th Battleborn! Pendles might just be the weirdest Battleborn yet – he’s a high-top sneaker-wearing snake-man assassin.

Hailing from the water world of Akopos, and pals with Alani, Pendles is a cold-blooded killer. No, literally. This anthropomorphized reptile will ssssneak up on you, poison you, perforate you with dual kamas then – poof – disappear without leaving a trace. Oh, yeah, and he wears a dope pair of sneakers.  Get it? “Ssssneaky”?!? Wears sneakers?!? (Fine…fine.) This Rogue’s rogue may be a cold-blooded assassin-for-hire, but Ghalt felt was safer to have him on the team, than not.

Pendles will be coming in the next couple months as the 27th Battleborn and will be free for everyone with 47,500 credits earned in-game. He can also be unlocked instantly using a (1) hero key, which are included in the season pass, saving you the time it takes to earn the credits to otherwise unlock him. We’ll have more info on Pendles, including his abilities and release date as, we get closer to his release.

Finally, as part of Alani Celebration Week, Battleborn is $20-off across all platforms for both the base game and the Digital Deluxe Edition in the 2K Store. From now through Saturday, the Digital Deluxe Edition includes the base game, plus all planned paid DLC in the season pass for less than the typical price of a AAA game without any DLC at all. There’s never been a better time to tell your friends to jump into Battleborn – before the Varelsi send this deal into the void with the rest of the universe! 

Patch Notes May 23, 2016

New Content:

• New Character
• New Skins and Taunts
• Hero Keys have been added

Mode & Map Changes:

We made a few changes to Incursion to prevent teams from snowballing to victory after defeating the first sentry. Now both teams get equal opportunities of lane pushing power at select times during the match. In addition, we added some extra power to the Thralls so that they help expedite team pushes. 

Incursion 

• Empowered Minion Waves no longer spawn for a team after killing the enemy's first Sentry. They now spawn for both teams every fourth minion wave. 

Incursion Thralls 

• All Thralls, when captured, no longer target enemy players
• All Thralls no longer flinch when hit in the legs by players or minions
• All Thralls no longer get knocked off the map
• Thrall Crushers
  • Now only attacks minions directly
  • No longer charges
  • New Skill: Has an area attack that destroys minions instantly and knocks up players (Usable once every 7 seconds)
• Thrall Guards
  • Now only attacks minions directly
  • New Skill: Targets a sentry with a mortar that deals heavy damage to the Sentry (Usable once every 10 seconds)

Overgrowth:

• Modified the sniper nests to prevent players from engaging the first sentry from across the map.
• Shepherds spawn every fourth wave instead of after the first Sentry is destroyed.
• Various level geometry changes to reduce collision issues.
• Fixed a rare issue with the central Thrall mercenaries not pushing. 

Echelon:

• Shepherds spawn every fourth wave instead of after the first Sentry is destroyed.
• Various level geometry changes to reduce collision issues.

Characters: 

Ambra:

Ambra’s Extinction Event provided unnecessary crowd control due to the large area of effect. We removed the slowing effect to allow for better counter-play options around her ultimate.

• Ambra’s Extinction Event skill no longer slows enemies.
• Fixed an issue that allowed Ambra’s Scorching Strikes to deal extra damage.
• Fixed an issue that prevented stealthed targets from being revealed when Ambra’s level 6 Left Helix Augment, Agile Anomaly and level 2 Right Helix Augment, Solar Burst were active.

Boldur

• Fixed an issue with the description of Boldur’s Legendary gear. 

El Dragon:

• Fixed an issue that allowed players to move bosses using El Dragon’s level 8 Mutation, Unbelievable.

Deande:

• Added a short cooldown to Deande’s Drop Kick to fix unintended vertical maneuverability.

Galilea:

Galilea’s desecrate was never intended to constantly apply crowd control or debuffs on enemies throughout the duration. We changed the augmentations to only apply the effects at the cast of the skill. This change now requires Galilea players to use Desecrate more effectively and allow some counter-play if players find themselves falling into the Desecrate. In addition, we made some fixes to her melee attack so Galilea is now moving like all other melee when attacking.

• Galilea’s level 1 Right Helix Augment, Calamitynow only wounds players when Desecrate is initially activated.
• Galilea’s level 4 Mutation, Bleak Quiet now only silences players when Desecrateis initially activated.
• Galilea’s level 8 Right Helix Augment, The Black Wind Howls now only increases her movement speed when Desecrateis initially activated.
• Galilea can no longer attack while sprinting.
• Fixed an issue that prevented Corruptionfrom damaging enemies affected by Galilea’s Desecrate after selecting her level 1 Right Helix Augment, Calamity. 

Kleese:

• Fixed an issue that allowed Kleese’s Energy Rifts to replenish Sentry shields in Incursion.
• Changed Kleese’s HUD to use a jump meter instead of an ammo counter.
• Fixed an issue that allowed Kleese’s Shock Taser to target stealthed enemies.
• Fixed an issue with Kleese’s Energy Rift damage when both level 4 Left Helix Augment, Rift Network and level 6 Left Helix Augment, Bulk Savings are active.
• Fixed an issue that increased the cast range of Kleese’s Energy Rifts and Black Hole. 

Marquis:

• Fixed an issue with Marquis’s level 2 Mutation, Eyes Everywhere.
• Fixed an issue where Marquis’s ultimate Bindleblast damage was not tracked properly after taking level 10 Right Helix Augment, exe.

Miko:

• Fixed an issue that prevented Miko’s Fungus Among Us from displaying the mushroom’s trajectory when primed.

Shayne and Aurox:

• Fixed a rare issue that allowed Shayne and Aurox to gain permanent health regeneration with their level 7 Left Helix Augment, Alone Time
• Fixed an issue that allowed Shayne and Aurox to use Tag Team through friendly base barriers.
• Fixed an issue that allowed some projectiles to pass through Aurox.

Non-Player Characters:

• Fixed an issue where minions could become very difficult to kill after being affected by certain healing sources.

Gear:

• Character Legendary gear no longer uses randomized values.
• Fixed an issue that prevented players from acquiring the “Medical Nano-Colony” Legendary gear.
• Fixed an issue with the “Sentinel Reset Switch” Legendary gear.

Quality of Life:

• Added “Faction”, “Character Rank”, “Lore Challenge Completion” and “Unlock” sorting for Battleborn in the Command menu.
• Fixed a “Player Initialization Failed” error when users first attempt to sign in.
• Fixed a rare issue that prevented players from controlling their characters if they were modifying their key bindings when starting a boss encounter. (PC)
• Fixed a rare issue that resulted in black flickering on the main menu. (XB1)
• Fixed an issue where an incorrect skin would appear for the second split screen user in the post-match screen.

Match Making:

• Fixed an issue with matchmaking hosts that should reduce the number of connection failures. (XB1)
• Various improvements have been made to reduce the number of matchmaking failures. (PS4)

Audio:

• Added unique sounds for attacking Immune and Overshielded
• Fixed an issue that allowed critical hit sounds to play against shielded players.
• Fixed an issue that occasionally prevented music from playing in Incursion.
• Various audio mix changes.

Localization:

• Various localization bug fixes.

Key Features:

• Playable Heroes: Battleborn has a deep roster of 25 playable heroes and no two heroes are the same. For example, Rath is a samurai sword-wielding melee specialist. Oscar Mike fires an assault rifle and plays like a familiar space marine. Thorn is a dangerous archer who can also deal damage through magical attacks. There are many, many more battleborn heroes, and each has unique weapons, powers, and personalities that, through the accelerated character growth system, can be fully experienced in a cooperative campaign mission, or over the course of a single competitive multiplayer match.
• Cooperative Campaign: Battleborn’s team-based cooperative campaign is a narrative experience playable with up to four other friends online, and through splitscreen, much like Borderlands. Player profile experience is earned during cooperative campaign play, will cross over to competitive multiplayer matches and vice versa.
• Competitive Multiplayer Modes: Battleborn’s team-based competitive multiplayer action can be experienced by up to 10 players online in 5v5 matches, and includes three distinct multiplayer modes.
  • Incursion: Teams of heroes defend their base from waves of AI-controlled minions while working together, alongside their own minions, to destroy their opponents’ base;
  • Devastation: Teams of heroes face off in a fast-paced death match and must capture and hold objectives on the map to win;
  • Meltdown: Teams of heroes protect their minions as they march to their death at the center of the map. Points are scored for minions who throw themselves into the incinerator, and the team with the most points wins.
• Persistent Progression System: All experience points, whether earned through playing Battleborn’s Story Mode or Competitive Multiplayer modes, contribute to leveling up individual Character Rank, as well as player profile Command Rank.
  • Character Rank: Each hero can permanently rank up from 1 to 10 outside of missions and matches, allowing players to swap out augments in their helix skill tree, as well as unlock skins.
  • Command Rank: Players can rank up their own player profile, unlocking badges and titles to impress friends, and loot that can be used to benefit any hero the player chooses to command.

Battleborn will be available for $59.99.