Battleborn's official promo artwork

If you ever wanted to give Battleborn a try now would be the best time to do so as today's Winter Update has added a variety of new features to help out beginners. Most importantly, it has made all 25 core heroes free for all players, so you will no longer need to waste your time doing pointless challenges in order to unlock your favorites. Furthermore, the credit rewards for missions have been increased in order to help new players catch up, and in case you need a bit of help there is now a new training mode to teach you the basics of each individual hero.

Since there are far too many changes for me to cover in short, allow me share with you the official list of features. It should give you a good idea of what to expect from today's Winter Update. Have a look:

NEW PLAYER EXPERIENCE

All 25 Core Characters Unlocked! 25 badass playable characters, no waiting! You’re eager to find your favorite, so get to it! With this update, the core 25 characters will be unlocked for all players after completing the Prologue.

- What about the character unlock challenges? These challenges now award a brand new skin upon completion! We’ve also adjusted several challenges to be more attainable.

Main Quests – Story Mode

- Story Mode missions will have more guides and tools to lead your through various areas of the game. The Credit rewards have also been boosted to help you get an early edge on loot packs

Two New Training Modes

- Incursion Tutorial: Build up your PVP skills and learn the key elements of competitive play in Battleborn. Your first play-through is solo, but this practice mode can be repeated with groups of up to three players.

- Dojo: Take each and every Battleborn hero for a test drive! Learn how to slice, dice, blast, smash, and rocket your way through waves of minions. 

RETURNING PLAYER ENHANCEMENTS

User Interface Changes: Battleborn’s user interface gets a major facelift. Cleaner, more vibrant, and much easier to find the information you need most. You’ll see UI changes throughout Battleborn, from the starting screen, to the Command center, character select, and even some menu changes.  

Draft Mode: This is one of the most exciting new additions! In Draft Mode, teams and players take turns picking and banning characters trying to find the perfect match-ups and counters for what the other team is choosing.

Introducing Daily Quests: The action doesn’t end when you take down Rendain. Check back daily for new objectives and rewards across both Story Mode and Competitive Multiplayer Mode.

Command Rank and Character Rank Increase: Keep on growing your Command and Character ranks! We pushed the cap to 150 for Command Rank, and rank 20 for each character, with all-new rewards!

Updated In-game Economy: We’ve overhauled the Credits system and how loot packs are made available, particularly in Competitive Multiplayer matches. Credits will now accumulate faster in public PVP matches, making it easier to grab more loot packs from the Marketplace. But not for leavers – they are out of luck and will not receive any rewards. You see, nobody likes a quitter.

Loot Packs: All loot pack variations will still drop in Story Mode missions, but only one type of loot pack will be available in the Marketplace: The Core Pack. The Core Pack has better odds for higher rarity gear and has a chance to drop any skin or taunt previously available in Faction packs.

Boosts: A bigger variety of Boosts will become available for Platinum in the marketplace.

PS4 Pro Support: Battleborn will also support PS4 Pro! PS4 Pro players will be able to choose between 1080p at 60fps or 4K at 30fps.

Besides all of the features listed above, the Winter Update has also brought with it Battleborn's 30th hero - Beatrix. If you own the Season Pass you will have instant access to this new disease spreading 'hero', but everyone else will have to wait until January 26th before being able to unlock her through in-game currency.

And if you're looking for a bit more content, the third DLC pack - Oscar Mike vs The Battle School - has also been released. If you're looking for all of the details, and there is a ton of them, you should head over to Steam. And as a final note, here's a lovely image of Beatrix:

Battleborn's reveal image for Beatrix