It's been a long time coming, but the big day is finally almost here: Following a weekend-long stress test that ran earlier this month, Ubisoft's long-awaited free-to-play FPS XDefiant is set to launch on May 21.
XDefiant was announced in 2021 and it didn't go especially well: The initial response, right down to the silly, stylized title, was so negative that Ubisoft mashed the brakes on the whole thing for almost a full year, later emerging reworked branding a decidedly more "tacticool" attitude. A well-regarded open beta and multiple delays followed, but a promised stress test in April went ahead and Ubisoft was apparently satisfied by what it saw.
The XDefiant launch will begin with a "preseason" that's slated to run for six weeks with five factions, 14 maps, and five gameplay modes: Domination, Hot Shot, Occupy, Escort, and Zone Control. There will also be a "ranked mode practice playlist," with 4v4 competitive matches in Domination, Occupy, Escort and Zone Control.
Once the preseason is done, XDefiant will roll into a "seasonal cadence," with new weapons, maps, events, and a new faction planned to be added every three months. This is what the year one roadmap looks like:
The goofy name and overall vibe set initial expectations low, but beta tests in 2023 fired hopes that it might actually be, well, good. Some of that arises with dissatisfaction with the current state of the online shooter scene, but former Call of Duty creative strategist Robert Bowling described XDefiant on Twitter as "a refinement" of what CoD used to do so well back in the original Modern Warfare era. "COD made a choice to move away from its roots and origins, its expanded to be an 'everything shooter,'" Bowling tweeted. "XDefiant knows what it is and does it well." PC Gamer editors Tyler Wilde and Morgan Park enjoyed their time with it too.
Whether XDefiant has the juice to find an enduring place among shooter fans is an open question, but Ubisoft has had some luck quietly filling those niches: Rainbow Six Siege is the obvious example, but For Honor and The Division 2 are also ticking along nicely, years after launch.
XDefiant will be available on PC from the Ubisoft Store.
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