“Hero shooter” Battleborn is the next game from the Borderlands 2 team at Gearbox Software, publisher 2K has announced.

A sci-fi first-person shooter with a co-op campaign and multiplayer mode, Battleborn is set in the distant future, with a new breed of warriors forced to put aside their differences in order to drive back an unstoppable menace.

According to 2K, players will choose from a number of powerful heroes and fight alongside their friends in a narrative-driven co-operative campaign, or battle against them in fast-paced competitive multiplayer matches.

Battleborn’s hero roster and five-per-team multiplayer makes it sound a bit like an FPS version of League of Legends or DOTA 2, but 2K said the label of MOBA isn’t accurate.

“Battleborn is not a MOBA, in fact it’s far from it,” the company told Venturebeat.

“As the term hero-shooter implies, Battleborn is first and foremost a first-person shooter.

“It’s heavily inspired by lots of genres, not least of which are character-centric games like the ones you mentioned, as well as fighting games, hence the ‘hero’ in hero-shooter,” it added.

“Players are going to experience a ton of other influences, especially from genres like RPG, RTS, and fighting games.”

In a statement, Gearbox Software president Randy Pitchford reiterated this point.

“If Borderlands 2 is a shooter-looter, Battleborn is a hero-shooter,” he said.

“As a genre-fused, hobby-grade, co-operative and competitive FPS exploding with eye-popping style and an imaginative universe, Battleborn is the most ambitious video game that Gearbox has ever created.”

Battleborn is slated for a “2016 fiscal year release” (which ends March 31, 2016) for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.