The Bornless Closed Beta Deep Dive
Disclaimer:
I’m not a financial advisor, this isn’t financial advice and these opinions are my own. I’m just a dude that is a web3 gaming enthusiast and reads too many whitepapers. Additionally, for this project I own a couple of the 1st collection NFTs and have been playing since the closed alpha test of the game.
What is The Bornless?
As always, if you don’t have 10-15 minutes for a full read there’s TLDR at the bottom. The Bornless is an upcoming free to play game with an NFT collection on Ethereum soon to be migrated to ImmutableX and is currently in closed beta. The game is a PvP first person shooter that is lore heavy, horror themed and that has a unique gameplay loop. 4 teams of 2 compete to be the last duo standing while also being hunted by a demon named Orobas. Players start the match with a knife, pistol and choice of 1 ability and then must collect incense across the map to acquire better gear. The incense can be spent for ammo and additional weapons but is also used to summon Orobas to fight other players on your behalf. There are 5 shrines and 4 item shops scattered across the map which are active and accessible one at a time, which forces players to compete over these resources. The winning duo will extract their incense from the match, which will also double as an ERC20 token and be the single token for the game ecosystem. Lastly, every NFT will give players access to upgraded safe houses (land gameplay), while free to play players will have safe houses as well they will be more limited in size and ability.
The Project so Far
The Bornless Collection 1 has a supply of 666 and minted on Dec. 1st 2021. At that point in time there was no playable game, so in just over a year, the project has developed very rapidly. Cathedral Studios was founded with The Bornless being the first IP in development. There was a closed alpha test which was open to lucky and active NFT holders and community members. This ended with an 8 person live streamed tournament that had a $2,000 prize pool. If you are interested in what the alpha was like check out my previous review here:
The game moved into closed beta, which expanded the playerbase a bit and added of a ton of new content and substantial change. The Bornless began and continues to onboard guilds and gaming organizations, dubbing them partnered “factions” that are given access to the closed beta. These factions were able to participate in a 64 team invite only tournament with a $10,000 prize pool. The factions are currently the gatekeepers for the beta as you must be a part of one to get a beta access code so while there’s a hoop to jump through it’s never been easier to try out the game. I should note all collection 1 holders also have access to the beta. The Bornless team recently released a new whitepaper and announced they’d be moving the project to Immutable as the beta testing continues.
The Closed Beta
So what’s new in the beta? Too much to fully detail. This game has been developing super quickly so I’m going to start by listing what I think are the highlights.
Brand new map.
Lightning system overhauled, no more pitch black spots.
Change in gameplay loop, burning incense was removed and Orobas is now summoned for a flat 25 incense per summon. Orobas also doesn’t start on the map now either, a team must summon him first.
The Shopkeeper, Haag, was added who you purchase guns and ammo from.
Addition of 3 new guns: Double barrel shotgun, Kar98 and Tommy Gun.
8 new character models.
Addition of 4 abilities: Scan, bubble shield, molotov and flare (they have better lore-based names in game).
Main menu and UI overhaul with keybinds and graphic options added.
Private matchmaking with team assignment, post game scoreboard and match history.
Winning team now extracts with their remaining incense.
Overhaul of audio both from players and globally.
Like last time I’m not going to touch on bugs as it’s a beta, bugs come and go with each new build. Knife lunges against walls launching you 10 meters airborne probably the best of the beta so far though. Also going to repeat something I stated in my last review. “The space is littered with projects that are copy-pastes of web2 games with tokenomics that will never advance the space. It appears to me the game draws inspiration from Hunt: Showdown, Escape from Tarkov and Rust but it’s not trying to be any of those things.”
Visuals. From a spectator and aesthetic standpoint there’s been some huge improvements from the alpha. The new map (Two Rivers) is larger and has way more detail as well as unique points of interest compared to the alpha map. With the lighting system overhaul there are no longer spots on the map that are pitch black and/or areas that players can hide in without recourse. In general, it’s simply easier to traverse the map and spot opponents while maintaining horror theme.
The demon, Orobas. To my knowledge the AI of Orobas is unchanged from the alpha. However, it is interacting with a new map, with a lot more stuff in it. This makes him even easier to kite around than in the alpha. Orobas does tend to still steal some kills in close spaces and/or when a player is forced into a poor position by other players and then gets whacked. How Orobas is summoned did change too. Shrines have replaced the cauldrons and rather than burning incense one at a time, players must pay 25 incense to summon him. Additionally, the active shrine then becomes a king of the hill scenario, where players may capture the shrine and the control of the demon. The main reason players want control of the demon continues to be that he serves as an audio and visual tracking tool for other teams rather than a primary threat.
Gunplay. The tommy gun is no longer the starting weapon, players get a pistol and knife. Don’t be fooled though the game is still a relatively hardcore shooter so the pistol can still kill with 1 clip and the knife lunge is a one-shot if you can land it. Power weapons can be purchased from Haag, who moves around with the active shrine. He will always have two weapons available from the current three of: double barrel shotgun, kar98 and tommy gun, each costing more incense respectively. Overall, it’s a marked improvement over alpha even if sometimes you blink and you’re already dead from a tommy gun spray.
Dopamine loop. The ultimate test for any game, do you want to queue up for another match? My answer for this continues to be, yes. The core structure of this game lends itself to esports and competitive gameplay. The Kingdom, which is a web3 gaming organization I help run, continues to host both playtests and small tournaments for the game. Myself and others have figured out the most optimal incense looting routes for the various spawns as well as several other meta strategies. 1st time players often tend to be drawn in by the atmosphere and experience of having Orobas chase you while some the veterans have found enough depth to develop meta strategies that increase their victory chances. This duality is a mark of a good game in my book.
Where is The Bornless now and Where’s it Going?
The team at Cathedral Studios announced a partnership with ImmutableX about a month ago and will likely be migrating and launching future NFTs/cosmetics on that platform rather than ETH mainnet. They also announced the “Order of Solomon” which will be a hub for all the partnered guilds and gaming organizations to cooperate and develop the community. This includes support for tournaments, events and other content creation. The beta continues to be played, tested and updated regularly.
The last review, I touched on the fact that this IP has some really deep lore. It’s baked directly into the NFTs with the 1st collection sequentially telling a story. That story is now up as a short book which can be found here. In a recent vlog they actually announced they’ve been stealth working on a single player mode for the game, which will be exploring this lore in a way that a multiplayer battle royale of course can not.
The same vlog gave us the first look at a “safe house”. These are between-match bases that players will be able to deck out with cosmetics and purchase upgrades that will help in matches. The free to play version is what was teased, with it being stated the NFT collection holders will have larger and higher utility safe houses.
In terms of the gameplay itself, we know there’s at least 3 new guns being added soon and while not confirmed I have to imagine we have different melee weapons coming at some point too, based on the NFT collection. We got a look at the overhaul of both Orobas’ look and AI. We additionally got a look at Bael, the 2nd demon to join the game, who’s a gigantic spider.
Last but not least, VR development is on the roadmap for the 2nd half of this year.
TLDR
The Good
Is free to play
Unique gameplay loop with nuanced strategy rather than a copy pasta web2 game with crypto added.
Has already shown some esports potential with The Hellfire Trials, a $10,000 event fielding over 15K viewers on Twitch.
Land gameplay NFT designed with web3 guilds in mind. Free to play with paid premium gameplay and cosmetics are a proven monetization model.
Moving to ImmutableX from Ethereum mainnet, good because anything is better than Eth main
Recently updated whitepaper that is very detailed and finally has tokenomic info
The Neutral
Still no details or date for the 2nd NFT collection. 1st collection floor is still affordable though.
Young and small team but with experience
Moving to ImmutableX, putting this in neutral as well because industry sidechain choice is still a toss up
The Bad
Low social media counts, many in the NFT space will judge a project on these numbers alone.
Getting started to play the beta has a couple hoops to jump through.
If you liked this style of game review consider checking out my other web3 game deep dives and reviews.
If you want to discuss any crypto or blockchain game related stuff, usually best to find me on Twitter @OzoneNFT or drop a comment below.
Where can I research this myself? Here's a bunch of links for you to do that.
The Bornless: