Oh, XDefiant. You sure went through a lot: a rebranding after a lukewarm reveal, years of betas and alphas, a mysterious delay and certification issues, yet another TECHNICAL TEST after a long absence and here we are: Ubisoft’s Call-of-Duty-esque free-to-play FPS is upon us. After plenty of hours of shooting on Xbox Series X, it’s time to look at how the long-awaited XDefiant really is.
Days of future past
As anticipated, XDefiant had a rocky last couple years. The game was first revealed in 2021 as an oddly colourful, wacky take on the somewhat serious military settings of the Tom Clancy games, with the late author’s name part of the branding even. I mean, the game’s logo had the rather outdated emoticon “XD”, well visible in the logo. None of this was particularly well received by most, and despite a promising invite-only alpha session, the game stayed off the radar for almost a whole year. It’s early 2022, and the shooter comes back with a more serious logo, less vibrant colours and a mission to be out pretty soon. And as further betas went by, a late 2022 or somewhat early 2023 launch seemed very likely, as the game already featured a sound gameplay core, a good amount of maps and gamemodes and seemingly most of the core systems in place.
Our calendars were showing the year 2023, and by the start of the summer, the game was extremely close to launch, with developers teasing a very imminent release date and a mission to launch by the end of the summer for sure. Said timeframe ends, and the game is nowhere to be seen, with barely any info from developers. Then the bombshell in October: the game has been delayed indefinitely due to an undisclosed issue. Speculation ran rampant, with players fearing the game would be one of the many multiplayer projects to be axed even before their official release.
Fortunately, it only turned out to be a certification issue – a severe enough one, evidently, but project cancelation wasn’t seemingly a looming cloud. So by early 2024 the game seems back on track, and after yet another short delay and a successful TECHNICAL TEST that we covered, on May 21st 2024… XDefiant launched on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 and PC, with full cross-play to boot. Ubisoft’s big new multiplayer shooter is finally here!
Answering (in part) to the call of duty
While I’m no fan of spending half the review comparing a game to other titles on the market, I also hate pretending when a videogame is very obviously aimed at replicating a very specific game formula found in an already existing videogame. Ubisoft’s XDefiant is very obviously aiming at replicating the ins and outs of the previous era of Call of Duty games – the ones preceding 2019’s soft reboot, Modern Warfare. The main inspirations seem to be Black Ops 2’s flow and style, though with other elements (such as classes, abilities, ultimates, etc.) taken from shooters that were popular a few years later, such as Titanfall, Overwatch, or Black Ops 3 itself.
As such, the gameplay is grounded with no massive jumps, wallruns or anything, but with enough close future, sci-fi adjacent tech we see in other Ubisoft franchises like Splinter Cell or Watch_Dogs. And let’s get the obvious out of the way: XDefiant feels really good to play. Be it on keyboard and mouse (which is only supported on PC as of now) or controller, like I most played during my testing on Xbox Series X, the aiming feels precise and snappy, the movement feels smooth and coherent, and all in all I wouldn’t say the comparison with Black Ops 2/3 is lost by Ubisoft’s new shooter at all.
There’s even custom FOV and a vast array of aiming settings to suit players used to all kinds of different shooters. The last technical test had some netcode hiccups, but my experience with the full game has been much better, with very few hit registration issues and an overall very stable experience. This is good: out of the gate, XDefiant already feels polished, reliable and satisfying, with a seemingly fine-tuned balance when it comes to virtually all weapons, class abilities and map designs.
Weapons of GaaS destruction
The action in XDefiant comes in various game modes, once again largely inspired by what’s normally found in such games. Classic team deathmatch is surprisingly missing from the roster for now, but plenty of other well-known modes like Domination and Escort are back, with even Hot Shot taking cues from Kill Confirmed for good measure. There’s even a ranked trial going on in this pre-season, before the proper season 1 begins in a month or so (more on that later), allowing players to truly find the opponents on their level.
Indeed, one aspect the developers seem to be crazy proud about is the fact that, while ranked modes offer players more or less around of your skill level, the skill-based matchmaking (or SBMM) does not exist in other, non-ranked casual playlists. For those not in the know, SBMM normally ensures that every player plays against players of their level, hopefully making for closer matches but making it harder for players to learn from the pros, as they can’t really meet them playing on a lower level. Indeed, extremely high ranked players may be placed in lobbies with a higher ping and less optimal playing conditions. On the flipside, a well-made SBMM should ensure that matches aren’t so-called “pubstomps”, as in one team absolutely annihilating another due to the randomness of the players, making for a more balanced experience.
XDefiant, as said, takes pride in removing SBMM, which further calls back to the fan favourite era of Call of Duty (on Xbox, 2012’s Black Ops 2 and 2015’s Black Ops 3 still frequently pop up in the 50 most played games in some regions, despite many other newer games around). And indeed, the symmetric 3-lane based map designs, the lack of notable camping spots, all areas reachable from every direction and so on make the matches feel dynamic and tactical, rather than extremely defensive. There’s no killstreaks, either, so there’s no real reward for protecting your streak over playing the objectives. A range of assault rifles, SMGs, sniper rifles, pistols and more dictate the shootouts, but class abilities can really turn a situation on its head in an instant.
Watching over you
No, it’s not as prevalent or “spammy” as is the case in Overwatch, but abilities can and do matter a lot. Players can freely choose between them, regardless of what teammates and opponents picked, and offer a glimpse into other Ubisoft franchises like Far Cry 6’s Libertad rebels or Splinter Cell’s Echelon unit. Each of them features a themed set of abilities, such as the Watch_Dogs-based gang DedSec using hacking skills, or the aforementioned Echelon specializing in stealth and target revealing. With fairly long cooldowns on both basic and ultimate abilities, these powers can be extremely powerful if used right, and when used in sync an Overwatch-esque dance of shields, heals, explosions and more can happen in an instant, leaving those simply stuck with regular weapons in a bit of trouble. No ultimate makes you invincible anyhow, and each skill has its counters already.
Indeed, XDefiant feels extremely balanced already. While certain weapons and their attachments are slowly becoming the meta, pending nerfs, on a general level I didn’t encounter a single weapon, ability or map position that felt ludicrously overpowered by any means. The TTK (time-to-kill, so basically how long it takes to kill an opponent) feels just right, allowing players to kill fast but also giving the other side a chance of fighting back – this is in stark contrast with the current wave of Call of Duty games and, again, something more akin to games like Black Ops 2 and 3. Grenades are extremely limited, skills have long cooldowns, killstreaks don’t exist, there’s no vehicles or rocket launchers – XDefiant is, by all means, a gun game with the occasional tactically used skill to secure a key location or fight back when seemingly cornered.
A bit on the basic side
The quality of the content is therefore not really in doubt, though the quantity of it and variety is a bit more hit and miss – although this is quite normal for a game-as-a-service at its launch. The starting 14 maps, 5 groups of classes and a couple dozen weapons are not a bad starting point, though with only 6 game modes present as of now the actual gameplay variety isn’t that high. Not even proper team deathmatch or free-for-all is here, let alone more unique modes like search and destroy, gun game or prop hunt. I certainly expect much of this to come by at a later time. And, since we’re comparing to Call of Duty and all that, it obviously has to be pointed out that this free-to-play alternative focuses on that sort of arena multiplayer: as such, don’t expect a campaign, a co-op mode (in the vein of Zombies, for example), a battle royale, and as said even the multiplayer itself does not feature any sort of vehicle, killstreaks, turrets or anything fancy like that.
XDefiant, for better or worse, is quite pure in its intentions and, as of now, isn’t really diluting the experience. What it also doesn’t lack is, surprise surprise, the classic microtransactions model such games tend to have. Expect the usual, really: a quite solid and not too grindy battle pass, the weapon and XP boosters like in Call of Duty or Ubisoft’s own Rainbow Six: Siege, on top of the bundles of cosmetics, ranging from a couple bucks all the way to dozens of dollars. No weapons or class abilities are locked behind any payment as of now, with players willing to spend merely rewarded with neat cosmetics such as animated clothes, unique killscreens or fancy decals for their weaponry. Most skins are pretty tame and not all that impressive for now, though Echelon are already getting some pretty tight oriental-themed skins already. We’ll see where the game’s monetization goes in the future.
Towards a bright future?
But all in all, I consider myself hooked to Ubisoft’s brand new free-to-play shooter, XDefiant. It’s fast, precise, exciting, quite well balanced and rather polished, even if it lacks some personality and originality by sticking awfully close to the mid-2010’s Call of Duty multiplayer formula. The gameplay and visual variety will have to improve a little bit as the game’s seasons progress, with perhaps some more ambition to be expected in future content updates. Still, the game’s core is already very strong, offering that classic arena shooting experience that even recent titles in Activision’s long lasting franchise seem to have abandoned, in favour of a more chaotic experience – for better or worse that may be. Ubisoft have a great multiplayer first person shooter in their hands: now it’s up to them to make it a mainstay for enthusiasts via a convincing post-launch support. For one, I’ll be here to play for the foreseeable future.
XDefiant
Played on
Xbox Series X
PROS
- Plays so damn well
- Captures the strengths of the best Call of Duty multiplayer suites
- Already balanced and varied enough
- Strong technical foundation
- Abilities are neat but they don't become predominant
CONS
- Not many new ideas
- Some classic game modes are missing
- So far, the cosmetic unlocks and MTXs aren't that great
