With XDefiant, Ubisoft has an extremely promising free-to-play multiplayer FPS. But for several months, radio silence. Things don’t seem to be going well internally.
The latest news is that the release of XDefiant is imminent. But without an official announcement, it seems that Ubisoft’s free multi-player FPS will (again) be postponed. The fault is visibly attributed to internal disagreements and the maintenance of too great ambitions for the title. We go behind the scenes of the game to bring you all this.
XDefiant, the new Skull & Bones?
The first time we heard about XDefiant was in June 2021. It was then a question of bringing together all the organizations of the Tom Clancy license in a free multi FPS mixing Call of Duty and Overwatch. We indeed had very nervous gameplay and agents with unique skills with a sort of Holy Trinity “Tank – DPS – Support”. The basic proposal, however, did not really rouse the crowds, the project lacking originality in the opinion of the players.
This changed, however, when XDefiant came into their hands through different testing phases. The latest dates back to September 2023 and recorded very positive feedback. Ubisoft thus had a very promising project in its hands. But since then, it has been radio silence. The game should have been released in February 2024, then its release slipped towards the end of March 2024. In any case, this is what we could take away from a call from Ubisoft to investors. The deadline is fast approaching, and still no news about the game. But what is happening at Ubisoft?
Eyes bigger than their stomachs and devs who have big ones
A start of an answer comes from the very knowledgeable Tom Henderson. He was able to contact Ubisoft employees naturally wishing to maintain their anonymity. Reportedly, since its 2021 announcement, XDefiant has missed several internally targeted release dates. This would be due to excessive ambitions maintained by the executives in view of the very positive feedback from the players. They would like this free to play game which has not yet been released to become the “ Call of Duty Killer “. Think of it as a baby David with a silenced gun versus a Goliath with a tank with 20+ years of history.
Inevitably, such ambitions lead to development delays. In fact, developers would feel particularly frustrated by the slowness that things are taking around XDefiant. “ The incessant drive to try to be like COD and adding unnecessary stuff continually destroys our current build of the game “, declared one of the developers working on the project bluntly. These endless last minute changes mean extra days of work trying to glue all the pieces together as best they can. The positive point is that Ubisoft has no plans to cancel this game. The negative point is that even Ubisoft doesn’t know when XDefiant will be released, let alone in what state. Let us hope, however, that traces of the great potential seen so far will still be present in the final product… one day?