XDefiant was revealed over two years ago as a new free-to-play, competitive, class based, first person shooter project within the Tom Clancy universe of video games. It was described by creative director Jason Schroeder and EP Mark Rubin at Ubisoft San Francisco as “fast paced firefights meets punk rock mosh pit.” A weird combination to say the least, but as weird as combining those two things together may seem on the surface, it does kind of make sense how they got there when you look closer at who’s making it. The team at Ubisoft San Francisco was previously in charge of the Rocksmith franchise, and Mark Rubin was brought over after having spent over 10 years helping to bring Call of Duty from a breakout hit in Modern Warfare (2007) to the gaming goliath it is now.
At first glance, though, I’d wager there are not a lot of Rocksmith fans watching the XDefiant reveal trailer and Rick Dalton pointing at the screen, as the game has made it very clear they are here to go one on one with the great one, Call of Duty. There was a time when competing with COD was an insurmountable proposition, but the winds of change can be felt ever so slightly as the dedicated COD community has developed some cracks in the foundation. Whether it’s the fracturing of the player base between COD proper and Warzone, or the more core issues like Skill Based Matchmaking / Engagement Optimized Matchmaking (SBMM / EOMM), there are some gaps that could be exploited. And who better to find those gaps than the man who saw them form for over a decade plus? It’s always hard to bet on David in situations like this, but what if….
The Sit-Rep
As mentioned in the opening XDefiant is a new competitive shooter from Ubisoft. Although Ubisoft has a legacy of leaning heavily into the mil-sim side of things, XDefiant “defies” that on all fronts. Described as an ‘Arcade’ shooter by the team, its first impression will be quite familiar to anyone who’s ever played the now Xbox Game Studios annual mega hit it’s competing against. The gun play, movement, and control scheme all feel very similar to COD, which is a good thing. You will sprint, slide, and shoot as you look through a red dot sight, reigning down bullets on your foes while leveling up to an epic musical number, unlocking new attachments and skins to add to your custom load outs along the way. The white knuckle action and constant dopamine hits are here and feel as good as ever.
But then the first impression ends, and you start to realize that this is not your grand pappy’s Call of Duty. There are new modes, new abilities, and a bunch of other small changes that result in what I would call a brand new flavor of COD. This is not “New Coke ” though, this feels like it was a project that used player feedback as its rubric instead of focus groups and engagement analytics. I know what you are thinking, though: every game developer says they are listening to player feedback. However, XDefiant seemingly backs it up. For instance, one of the first pain points players pointed out in early tests was the weirdness of this punk rock meets Tom Clancy universe. It’s a concept that, while weird, clearly had a lot of time, money, and development behind it. However, the team responded, and both the Tom Clancy moniker and punk rock aesthetic are gone, with the game being better for it, in my humble opinion. Just because Tom got axed from the title, though, doesn’t mean his influence is fully erased. You see, Call of Duty was not the only game that XDefiant was influenced by, as these developers have clearly played more than a few rounds of Overwatch and… Super Smash Brothers?
All Factioned Up
One of the most defining features in XDefiant is the factions. These essentially act as the game’s classes and play a big part in how you play and form strategies. In an ode to Smash Bros., all of the factions are ripped straight out of franchises within the Ubisoft catalogue. From The Division to Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon and even Far Cry, the gang’s all here. As a fan of all of these franchises, it’s great to see that the team at Ubisoft San Francisco did a lot more than just a palette swap here, as everyone and everything feels quite authentic towards their respective universes. The authenticity goes beyond aesthetics, though, as each faction has its own in-universe announcer, and all of the game’s maps are plucked right out from past games; the map centered around the downed plane from the Division 2’s E3 game play reveal is a particular highlight for me.
Mechanically, they all have their own unique gadgets and ultimate abilities that you can access based on your in-game performance, in lieu of something like COD kill streaks. The ultimates and gadgets all help to flesh out the role you will play on your team. If you want to be more of an assault role, you can select The Cleaners faction from The Division, with their fire bomb drones and flame thrower ultimate. If that’s not your thing, you can select an Echelon agent from Splinter Cell and opt for a more recon-oriented role. That faction can scan enemies with a radar pulse gadget, as well as assassinate targets with their Destiny Golden Gun-esc ultimate where you activate thermal vision and pull out a one hit kill Third Echelon Five-seven pistol for a brief period.
The intricacies of these classes are an important factor, especially considering the bold decision (I feel) that the game is not shipping with any kind of straight up Team Deathmatch mode. Everything on offer here requires you to work with your team on some sort of objective, be it an Overwatch-style Escort the Payload mode or a Halo-style land grab mode, everything here requires a bit more thinking then just straight up slaying. I say this is a bold move because the most popular playlist in Call of Duty, or most first person shooters for that matter, is Team Deathmatch, and the closest thing to it is XDefiant‘s take on kill confirmed, called “Hot Shot,” where, once you pick up 3 kill confirmations, you start to move around the map at super human speed while appearing as an icon on enemies’ HUDs. Personally, I think this was a great idea as all of these modes put a big emphasis on the game’s strengths, at least initially, as the devs have mentioned new modes coming in the future that could possibly fill that Team Deathmatch-sized hole.
The Dollar Flu
All of the classes bring something unique to the table and complement the game’s very fluid and responsive gun play quite well. At launch the game has five factions to choose from; however, one of them is locked behind a pay or progression wall. That’s right, the Dedsec faction from Watch Dogs 2 will cost you 1000 “XDefiant Coins”’ to instantly unlock (around 10$ USD), or it will unlock for free if you can complete the seasonal challenge by earning 700,000XP while playing. It’s definitely unfortunate to see something as core to the game as a faction being locked away in this manner, but it is somewhat easier to swallow when you see the speed that XP is acquired. I’m a dad gamer who, at best, can scratch out a 2-3 hour session when everyone else in the house is asleep, and, within that time, I was able to get around 10-15% of the way there after session 1. I’d say, on average, it will take around 1-2 weeks to unlock for most people.
There are also daily challenges on offer that can help speed up this process, as well; in fact, challenges play a big role in all progression, not just unlocking the Watch Dogs faction. Every piece of equipment, every gun, and even player models within each faction are unlocked by completing challenges. These typically require some combination of you getting a specific amount of kills, in a specific way, with a specific gun, while playing as a specific faction. This system is a welcome addition as you can easily target which guns you want to work towards, and they are all unlocked very quickly. I was able to unlock nearly every gun in the game before hitting level 30, and that could have been done a lot faster if I focused more on it. All of your attachments and prestige skins for weapons are unlocked the old fashion way, though, by using the equipment and leveling it up with XP. Overall, the progression system is quite satisfying to work through.
In terms of additional paid content you have the standard assortment of premium cosmetics bundles, and a battle pass. The battle pass does include a new weapon in the MDR assault rifle, unlocked at level 10, however it is one of the few free unlocks that come with it so no purchase is required to unlock it. The final unlock however, is a pretty awesome skin for the MDR though which was enough for me to take the plunge. This battle pass is marketed as a “pre-season” battle pass though, and is only lasting for around 40 days. Much shorter than the typical 3 month seasons we are used to seeing in other similar titles, so it remains to be seen what a full season will look like and more importantly, be priced at.
EX – MatchMaker
The familiar game play and the factions based on iconic Ubisoft franchises may be what gets put on the box art to draw people in, but there is something happening under the hood with XDefiant that is grabbing the attention of the more hardcore audience. I’m, of course, talking about the game’s matchmaking, or, more specifically, how matches are made. The team at Ubisoft San Francisco has been quite vocal on their stance against Skill Based Matchmaking and Engagement Optimized Matchmaking (SBMM / EOMM) in a lot of its press, which has been music to many players’ ears.
In short, SBMM / EOMM is removed with an intention of leading to more dynamic matches and a more organic feeling of play for those who just want to casually jump into some matches with friends. At the same time, it also stops punishing players for improving their skill and removing the feeling of being manipulated. The TLDR is that you will likely have less frustration playing in casual matches on XDefiant vs other shooters, specifically in relation to wildly inconsistent levels of competitions in your matches.
(Note from the Reviewer: if you want to skip a detailed rant about why this is an important decision, skip to the next section)
Ever since Halo 2, we have gotten used to asking the game developers to find opponents for us to play against within a specific set of parameters, ie: a playlist. It’s a system that is extremely convenient and gets us into matches with random opponents very quickly. However, over the years the “randomness” of those opponents has been under scrutiny.
Enter Skill Based Matchmaking (SBMM). It originally started off as a system to try and create an even playing field for players by observing the performance of individuals, assigning them an ELO-like rank, and then matching them up with similarly skilled players. The thought was that, in a perfect world, if the highly skilled players played together and the people who were there to just have a good time played together, everyone would have more fun. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world, and the system has drawn the ire of many people. The systems have become overly aggressive, resulting in the feeling of being punished for improving as a player. It also removes all of the dynamism that makes playing games in these sandboxes so fun. Not to mention it falls apart completely when you try to play with people of different skill levels, resulting in frustratingly inconsistent matches.
These are games that are designed to have winners and losers at the end of the day, and it’s not a great feeling to know that the game’s matchmaking system is actively trying to prevent you from winning too much. But it gets worse, Engagement Optimized Matchmaking, the evolution of SBMM, enters the chat. EOMM uses even more player data to try and find the best way it can manipulate your psychological tendencies and reaction to wins, losses, and level of challenge in matches to keep you playing longer. It preys on how human beings react to the chemical reaction our brains have when we perform well at something, as well as what happens when that sense of pride is swept away, all in an effort to keep you chasing that high. Finally, as if it couldn’t get any worse, the makers of Call of Duty also hold patents to use these complex algorithms to “arrange matches to influence game-related purchases.”
(If you want to know more about the effectiveness and methodology of EOMM, UCLA did a comprehensive study, analyzing millions of matches worth of data provided by EA and Respawn. The algorithms at play here are quite complex and effective )
All in all, it’s safe to say that most players understand, when entering in a ranked mode, there is expected to be some thought involved in who you play against. The entire point of ranking is to try and see where you fall amongst the community in terms of your skill level and then strive to improve your position in that regard. That being said, players are getting tired of that mentality seeping into every aspect of play, even in casual modes. Players don’t want to be punished with inconsistent experiences as a result of them playing with a group of friends that have a skill level variance, or punished for simply improving as a player. So the fact that XDefiant offers this in its non-ranked playlists is a welcome change, and, hopefully, it’s the beginning of a new trend in PvP games to come.
New Kids Got Some Quirks
The foundation of XDefiant is strong, and there is a lot to love about the package at launch. There is a substantial amount of content in terms of maps, modes, weapons, and load outs. The future is bright, too. The team has commented that all of the content for the first season is already developed, and they are currently building stuff for year two. They have also stated that there are no limits in terms of their access to the Ubisoft treasure trove of properties, so it’s safe to say we will see even more of our old favorites show up down the road. However, this still very much is a foundation at this point in time as there are some glaring issues out of the box.
Of course, with any new competitive game with this level of variance in the sandbox thanks to different classes, load outs, and the like, balance is a key concern. Sniping seems a bit strong at the moment, with one-hit kill body shots being a thing in some cases. “Bunny hopping,” has been widely criticized by the community. The biggest issue, though, has got to be network desync. There are several instances on a per game basis where it feels like you got behind cover and still died. I’m not the only one that’s noticed it, either, as a quick look into the game’s community on X, Reddit, or other social networks will quickly reveal this to be number one on the complaints list. Thankfully, the team at Ubisoft San Francisco have been very vocal about what they are doing to address community feedback and have already shown an ability to get fixes out quickly, with bunny hopping and sniping getting fixes soon. So I have faith, for now, that this will be addressed.
Other notable shortcomings would definitely be the lack of a ping system or named map areas to help with call outs. These features are vital for communication in any team-based shooter, but they stick out a lot more when you are dealing with a game as fast paced as this one. Since the game is also missing a proper ranked mode at launch, though, it hasn’t stopped me from having fun in more casual matches. When a proper ranked mode does launch, these issues are going to be a major problem, so I’m hopeful that we will see this addressed before then.
Number One Contender
XDefiant does a lot of things right. The authentic representation of some of Ubisoft’s most iconic franchises will undoubtedly get people in the door while the fluid and responsive combat ensures any arcade shooter fan has a good time while they are here. Even with some missing features and technical shortcomings, I believe that its thoughtful progression systems, player friendly matchmaking, and a solid content pipeline will keep this game going for the long haul. My only question is: when is the Rayman DLC dropping?
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