Ubisoft’s XDefiant, a first-person shooter meant to take on the likes of Call of Duty, will finally get a wide release and enter its Preseason on May 21.
Ubisoft San Francisco announced XDefiant in July 2021 and has held several rounds of testing for the game since then. It’s a 6v6 competitive shooter being worked on by former Call of Duty developers, where the main hook is that each faction is based on a Ubisoft franchise. Series like Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell, The Division, Far Cry, and Watch Dogs are all represented here. After years of testing, Ubisoft initially promised a wide release for XDefiant sometime around September or October of 2023, but delayed the game after a public test session.
Ubisoft then planned to release XDefiant by the end of March of this year, but missed that window as well. A report by Insider Gaming around that time claimed its development team had a toxic “boys club- like mentality that led to the problems and trend-chasing that resulted in these delays. Executive Producer Mark Rubin refuted some of these claims, and it now seems like Ubisoft is at a point where it feels confident enough to do a wide release of XDefiant.
It will begin with a six-week “Preseason” that features five playable factions, five modes, 14 maps, and 24 different weapons. In the same blog that revealed the launch date, Ubisoft promised to add four more factions, 12 new weapons, and 12 new maps over the course of XDefiant’s first year, which will consist of four seasons that last three months each. Here’s the full road map:
At 10 a.m. PT on May 21, XDefiant will become available on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. It will be a free-to-play title from the day it launches.
