First-person shooter XDefiant combines the best of Ubisoft’s worlds

Ubisoft’s upcoming Call of Duty-like free-to-play FPS (first-person shooter) XDefiant has been in development since early 2021. The game, which was originally called ‘Tom Clancy’s XDefiant,’ was rebranded to just ‘XDefiant‘ in early 2022.

The title is now ready to enter closed beta on Thursday, April 13th, and I got the chance to play it for a brief before the closed beta launches. Though I only spent a short amount of time with XDefiant, its variety of weapons, various game modes and unique maps helped it stand out in the crowded world of shooters.

The game offers several playlists, including ‘Escort,’ where you escort a payload to a delivery point as attackers, or prevent the opponents from doing so as defenders.

In ‘Zone Control,’ you attack or defend capture zones with your team. ‘Domination’ mode tasks you with capturing and holding three capture zones at once to earn extra points and beat the opposing team, while in ‘Occupy,’ you take and control a single capture zone that changes its location during the match.

Finally, in ‘Hot Shot,’ you collect bounties from fallen enemies, and the player with the most bounties becomes the Hot Shot, gaining speed and aiming stats.

At the heart of the game are its weapons. XDefiant offers a decent variety of firepower, including assault rifles, SMGs, shotguns, LMGs, marksman rifles and snipers, all with their own customization options, like different muzzles, barrels, optics, magazine size, grips and skins. I wasn’t able to unlock any attachments, considering that I only got to play the game for a brief while, but they seem to work similarly to mods in Call of Duty games.

Most of the maps feature a classic three-lane format and look well-designed for XDefiant‘s 6 vs 6 arena shooter gameplay, with a variety of familiar locations from Ubisoft’s other iconic games, like ‘Pueblito’ from Far Cry 6 and The Division-inspired maps set in post-Black Friday New York.

I played the game in 1920 x 1080 resolution on a 240Hz monitor with Nvidia Reflex Low Latency on Enabled + Boost, and most graphic settings on high. On those settings, I was able to maintain a frame rate of 110fps at all times, and I don’t even have a newer GPUs (I’m using AMD’s RTX 2070 Super), so the game does seem to be well-optimized. Using medium to high settings pushed my framerate up to the 160+ mark.

Since this was a closed beta, finding players to fill up lobbies took a while, but that’s unlikely to happen when the game is more widely available. Each player in the lobby gets to select their agent from one of the five factions, namely ‘Cleaners — Pyro Technicians,’ ‘Phantoms — Future Soldiers,’ ‘Libertad — Freedom Fighters,’ ‘Echelon — Super Spies,’ and ‘DeadSecs — Cyber Attackers.’

Each faction offers different abilities and ultras, and it’s up to you to find the faction that works the best with your play style. Essentially, victory is likely if all players on the team work together to make use of their separate abilities. For example, I primarily played as Splinter Cell‘s Echelon with the ability called ‘Digital Ghillie Suit’ (which made my character invisible to enemies for a short while — just long enough to flank and sneak in behind them) and an intel suit, which essentially reveals enemy locations.

To dominate in XDefiant, you of course need to be a skilled shooter, but you’ll also need to grasp all of the ways in which factions affect gameplay.

‘Cleaners’ is another faction that specializes in area denial with flame abilities, and is picked from Tom Clancy’s The Division series, while ‘Libertads,’ the rebel group in Yara from Far Cry 6, specializes in making the whole team better by using healing abilities. Then there’s the ‘DeadSec,’ a faction known for its cyber-attacking abilities, picked up from Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs games. DeadSec agents can hack and take over enemy hardware, and even lock them out of their abilities entirely. Lastly, there’s the ‘Phantoms’ faction, ex-ghosts from Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon. These agents use their advanced tech to defend themselves and their teammates.

Experimenting with the agents and finding the one that best suits your play style is important, and Ubisoft’s implementation of the faction system, with its varying strengths and weaknesses, is why I think the game will do well when it comes out. The studio says that it will continue to add to the diverse cast of factions and its characters as the game evolves.

Since the closed beta has no NDA, creators can finally start uploading content regarding the game, essentially creating hype for its eventual release. The closed beta server opens April 13th at 1pm ET/10am PT, and closes on April 23rd at 2pm ET/11am PT.

Additionally, Ubisoft is also kicking off the closed beta with an XDefiant showcase on its official Twitch and YouTube at 1pm ET with a special ranked mode showmatch. Ubisoft will also share a deep dive into game features, closed beta details, details about factions, loadouts, maps, modes and the seasonal roadmap during the event.

To be able to play in the closed beta, you need to register in advance at playxdefiant.com.

Tune into Twitch Streams, including the XDefiant Showcase on www.twitch.tv/ubisoft, and you will also have the opportunity to receive game access drops. To qualify for the drops, all you need to do is watch a partnered streamer for 30 minutes or more.

There is currently no release date for XDefiant. When it does release, XDefiant will be available on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S. Xbox One, PC and Amazon Luna.

Image credit: Ubisoft (Screenshots)