Gearbox Software’s new shooter Battleborn is out today, just in case you’ve been living under a rock.  While the game does have a single player campaign, it also has an extensive multiplayer PvP component. As with many shooters, its going to take us some time to see how the servers hold up, how the progression system works in the long term, and just how fun the game is for extended periods of time. So, in case you were wondering where the final score is, don’t worry. We’ll be updating our review in progress over the coming days with more impressions and videos. But for now, here’s a clip from Digmbot’s launch day stream to tide you over. And don’t forget to jump down past the video when you get done for some more impressions of this new IP.

Battleborn is a hard game to define. Like Overwatch, it’s a hero shooter. Characters have unique weapons and abilities, and you level up throughout the match. However, it also shares some MOBA DNA. As you level up, you choose augments to your basic abilities. You might want to increase the AOE damage of the archer Thorn’s blight pool for example. Or, you may choose to have her gain increased movement speed whenever she touches her own blight. The choice is yours, and it allows you to customize your Battleborn to your chosen playstyle or respond to the in game situation by specializing to deal with certain opponents.

The game does have a single player campaign, which can be played solo, with friends or in public groups. Only a handful of missions are available at launch, with the rest coming out later on. With 25 characters to unlock via mission completion, challenges and more, theres no shortage of content. The game also comes with three modes. Incursion sees you escorting your minions down a lane and building gun turrets, accelerator turrets and more as you try to push into the enemy base and destroy their sentry robots. Meltdown on the other hand tasks you with driving minions into giant furnaces to score points. And Capture, perhaps the dullest of the modes, is a standard capture and hold three points affair.

What sets Battleborn apart is the sense of humor and the way that experience is handled in match. The furnaces in Meltdown think they are gods. As minions are engulfed, they will scream out things like “By fire be reborn aaaas…..HUBCAPS!” Characters have tons of witty one liners. And even the sentry bots that guard the enemy base have their own personalities- I’ll never forget the first time one killed me and then flipped me off during the death cam replay.

Then there’s the way the game handles levelling and experience. In most shooters or MOBAs, you get experience from kills or from taking down significant objectives. While this still holds true in Battleborn you also have other options available. If you want to spend shards (the game’s currency earned from kills as well as object on the map) to build and level up defensive and offensive turrets, the game will reward you with XP. This means that a support focused character can play the map and continue to level up. In addition, gear is taken into battle in the form of loadouts. There is no item shop. Instead, you must spend shards to activate your gear. The better the gear, the more shards it costs to activate. And, showing it’s Borderlands DNA, the most epic of loot in Battleborn often comes with some significant disadvantages to offset the insane buffs it can provide. All this means that the game allows players to determine how they level up, when they activate gear (if at all) to obtain power spikes, and keeps the action flowing at a pace that never feels frustrating. Getting slaughtered in straight up fights? Sit back, support the team by building healing turrets and get some levels. Kicking ass and taking names? Spend those sweet shards to up your crit chance as you activate that sweet pair of gloves you unlocked in a loot pack after that last campaign mission.

As you can probably tell, theres a lot of interesting ideas in Battleborn. The characters are memorable, the levels are well laid out and the gameplay loop is satisfying and allows you to be flexible in your playstyle. We’ll be bringing you more over the coming days, so stay tuned!

Want the system specs for Battleborn? Click HERE for PredictedCyborg’s preview of what you need to run it.

Still need more gameplay? Check out Lone and Digm playing the open beta HERE.

Today press releases and announcements on social media confirmed the date of release for one of Bethesda’s upcoming games that was accidentally spoiled in potentially the funniest way possible – Dishonored 2.

The release date has now been set as Friday, November 11th and will be released for the Xbox One, Playstation 4 and the PC on that date worldwide. There will also be a gameplay premier shown off at Bethesda’s showcase at E3 on June 12th.

This is of course the sequel to the first Dishonored game, which saw you playing as an assassin with supernatural powers. The big draw this time of course is that not only can you play as the previous protagonist, royal protector, Corvo Attano, but also Empress Emily Kaldwin. The choice in methods is also still present, meaning you can decide to proceed slowly and take out opponents silently, or enter aiming to cause mass chaos.

For more information, you can browse over to the game’s site at www.dishonored.com

This is one of two reveals today, after the announcement of Dawn of War 3 a few hours earlier.

After a few weeks in which The Division seemed to be spawning new and interesting bugs as fast as they could be fixed, Ubisoft have decided to implement not only new methods of detection against cheating but also slightly harsher penalities for those caught at it.

“We have already caught more cheaters in the last few days than we had in total during the previous weeks. As a result, we will be handing out the biggest wave of suspensions and bans to date over the course of the next few days.” Ubisoft wrote in an update on the subject.

Previously first time offenses would gain cheaters a three day suspension from the game, but now Ubisoft have decided to up that to fourteen days – possibly due to the Falcon Lost exploit that led to cheaters purposefully bypassing parts of the mission to repeatedly gain access to high-end loot that was supposed to be available only once a week. Second offenses remain unchanged though, with the cheater than being permanently banned from the game.

Ubisoft also took time to address concerns from the community that they could be caught out if they happened to stumble into a cheat rather than aiming to exploit it, by clarifying what they considered a “bug exploit”.

“Should new bugs be discovered, we will quickly confirm if these are considered exploits. All known exploits will be clearly listed in a public forum thread and across our various communication platforms. We want all players to be informed. This will ensure that those caught after an exploit was confirmed are aware of the consequences and actions that can be taken against them. Sanctions will be implemented for players who repeatedly abuse exploits and will vary depending on the severity of the abuse, as well as the history of the player. Possible sanctions include character rollbacks, account suspensions and permanent bans. Those who encounter bugs during the normal course of play have absolutely nothing to worry about.”

Apparently two waves of bans have already hit the game, and no doubt as time goes on more people will find themselves separated from loot they might have gotten through means they knew weren’t legit. Let’s just hope that the processes don’t catch anyone innocent in the net, if a new bug comes along.

A news post on the official Japanese Persona Channel listed release dates and platforms for Persona 5 yesterday, exciting fans when they noticed that not only was the date July 8th, but said that the game would be releasing on both PS4 and PC simultaneously – a PC release having been before ruled out as impossible in August last year.

Alas though, it was not to be. Shortly after the news was reported the Atlus news site began to update with posts that talked about methods of breaking into said Persona Channel and using it to post fake news posts. So it seemed that the PC release was as said previously; impossible.

A good example of why it pays to be a little hesitant sometimes when news comes out. Even if the news comes from an official source sometimes it’s just people playing a prank or in need of full actual press release confirmation before you can safely get excited.

An RPG that sees party members using powers based off masks from great olden time Balls has reached almost half of it’s £45,000 goal despite having only been running for 48 hours.

Masquerada: Songs and Shadows, an isometric pause-and-plan real-time RPG, is already looking to be in the advanced stages of development but the developers Witching Hour required just that little bit extra to polish the game up and get it into players’ hands. So far it looks like they might succeed.

The game will put you into the shoes of  private investigator Cicero, banished from a civil-war-ridden city,  and you must return to discover the root of the troubles around you. It also boasts fully voice-acted scenes and dialogue with names such as Jennifer Hale and Matthew Mercer attached to it.

If it sounds like your sort of thing, take a look over on the Kickstarter page. The fact that the campaign’s doing so well bodes well for this game actually making it to the selling stages.