Gearbox and 2K are ramping up the downloadable stuff for Battleborn. It was more than two months between the first DLC character Alani and the second one Pendles. The wait won't be so long for Ernest, who is showing up less than a month after my favorite snake assassin. The demolition bird will be available for season pass holders on August 25, while the general population will have to wait until September 1 to unlock him.
As with the other downloadable characters, unlocking Ernest requires either a Hero Key (provided in a season pass) or 47,500 in-game credits, which is a non-negligible sum. (It comes out to being about 30-50 hours of play time, depending on which mode is played and whether victory is achieved.) Thankfully for those who want to get to blowing stuff up soon, a Double Credits Weekend is planned starting tomorrow and running until Monday. So it should be possible to grind out a good chunk of the money necessary to save for when he drops.
As far as Ernest himself, we'll learn more about the 28th Battleborn hero in a stream later today on Gearbox's Twitch channel. One interesting point in the blurb we have so far is that he brings "a new means of support and defense." Just from his look I wasn't expecting him to be a support character, although his faction the Peacekeepers is notably the only one missing a healer of some sort. We shall see.
There still hasn't been much word on the first paid story DLC for Battleborn, which was tentatively planned for "late summer." Not much time left to hit that window!
Ernest Release Date & Double Credits Weekend! [Battleborn.com]