XDefiant Review – More Than A Flash and A Bang

Ubisoft’s attempt at an arcade, hero-like first-person shooter, XDefiant has finally arrived! I’ve been playing it every day since launch, and while it definitely needs some tweaks, the foundations of a great game are here.

Game Name: XDefiant
Platform(s): PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S (played), PC (reviewed)
Publisher(s): Ubisoft
Developer(s): Ubisoft San Francisco
Release Date: May 21st 2024

Potential To Occupy A Unique Space

For those who don’t know, XDefiant is a multiplayer FPS game that uses Ubisoft’s existing franchises, which I’ll get back to shortly. XDefiant takes ideas from games like Call Of Duty and Overwatch, but the way it mixes these identities gives it the potential to occupy a completely unique space within the multiplayer FPS genre.

Something that really sets XDefiant apart is the use of existing Ubisoft franchises. currently, in the game, we have Far Cry, Watch Dogs, Splinter Cell, The Division, and Ghost Recon. Not only do these games set the basis for the playable factions in XDefiant, but they are also used to provide the maps on which you play. Getting to play through familiar but tweaked locations such as Times Square and having it still feel like part of The Division was amazing. On top of that having the first-person perspective on these familiar locations got me wishing that I had the option to explore more of Ubisoft’s worlds in first person.

Gameplay Overview

When it comes to the gameplay, it is both familiar and fresh, with the pace of an arcade arena shooter and the tactical squad-based play of modern hero shooters. XDefiant has a handful of modes available at launch. These modes include Domination, Occupy, Hot Shot, Zone Control, and Escort. Domination has you fighting for control over three different flags. Occupy sees you battling for control of a point that changes location. Hot Shot, which is XDefiant’s twist on the classic kill confirmed. Zone Control, in which you you play two rounds where you attack or defend several locations—whichever team captures the most points in the fastest time wins.  Then we have my personal favourite mode, Escort, where across two rounds you have to escort a robot to different points on the map or try to stop the escorting team from reaching their destination.

Although I played on PC I still used a controller, as that’s what I prefer. As expected, the control scheme is pretty much identical to most modern FPS games. You can see the default layout when using an Xbox controller in the image below.

You will, of course, notice the Left Bumper, which activates your class ability and recharges time. Each faction has two class abilities to choose from. Then there is your Ultra Ability which charges as you get kills and score points. You activate it by pressing Left and Right Bumper at the same time. These Ultras can be game-changing so it is important to use them at the right time as they don’t last long. It’s also important to mention that you can not be prone in XDefiant—only crouch, which seems to be in place to prevent drop shotting, which is sitting at prone the entire match and giving yourself an advantage. Ask Call of Duty players just how much this is hated.

Factions and Progression

At launch there are six factions available in XDefiant. These are the following:

• Cleaners – You can choose between an Incinerator Drone or a Firebomb as their ability. Both are AOE attacks of sorts, with the drone spreading fire along a straight path. Firebomb sees you detonate a Molotov causing big damage in a smaller circle area. The Ultra of the Cleaners is The Purifier. This gives you temporary access to a powerful flamethrower to ‘sterilize’ your enemies. While I am not personally a fan of the Cleaners, one of the main reasons to use them is actually their passive trait which sees them use incendiary rounds adding additional damage to every weapon.
• Echelon – You have the option of a Digital Ghillie Suit or Intel Suit as your ability. The Ghillie allows you to be almost invisible for a short period and the Intel Suit sends out a pulse to ping nearby enemies. As for their Ultra, Echelon has access to Sonar Goggles. These goggles enable them to see the exact position of all enemies for a short time while also equipping them with a powerful handgun during this time. Echelon’s passive trait is low profile, which means they won’t appear on the minimap regardless of what they do. This is my main class as I find the intel suit to be extremely useful in both attacking and defensive situations.
• Libertad – The ultimate medic class with all their abilities focused on healing themselves and their teammates. These abilities include BioVida Boost, which allows you to quickly heal yourself—very useful during one-on-one gunfight moments. El Remedio on the other hand is a healing canister, with an area of effect healing both yourself and teammates; making it very useful when trying to hold a specific point. These canisters also last for twenty-five seconds, but remember you can also shoot these cans to destroy them. The Libertad passive Espiritu de Libertad is essentially your infectious willingness to fight for freedom, allowing you to heal yourself or any team members by a small amount. Then we have the Ultra ability Médico Supremo, which provides a large health boost to you and allies within a certain radius for a short period. If you are a support player this faction is the one for you!
• Phantoms – These Phantoms have an immediate advantage thanks to their passive trait Hardened, which results in them having a bit more health by default. As for active abilities, you could go for Mag Barrier a deployable energy field that with absorb some damage. If you like to get up close and personal, Blitz Shield might suit you better—it absorbs damage and can also be used to melee enemies with a powerful smack. When it comes to the Ultra, Phantoms have Aegis, a spherical energy shield and scatter gun combo. Aegis is arguably the strongest Ultra ability in XDefiant but it doesn’t last as long as most of the other factions’ Ultra abilities.
• Dedsec – Finally we have Dedsec, who can handily reprint grenades using their passive trait Fabricator. They have the ability to Hijack enemies’ deployable abilities and turn them into allied ones. Personally, I use the Spiderbot ability when playing as Dedsec. This little robot spider will lead you to and paralyze the nearest enemy for an easy kill. Dedsec also has perhaps the most useful Ultra, Lockout, which disrupts all enemy abilities and their minimap for twenty seconds. That said, I left them till last because for most people you won’t get to use them immediately. That is because you need to either earn 700k XP points, buy them in the store, or subscribe to Ubisoft+ for this faction. While to Ubisoft’s credit, it doesn’t take anywhere near as long to earn the required XP as it would in some similar games, this is still something that is trying to get you to spend money for faster access.

You may be asking, how do I earn that amount of XP? Well it’s simple really. Everything you do in matches earns you XP—from kills, or objective scores, to assists. Everything you do in your quest to win is rewarded. At the end of a match, you have a chance to earn extra XP with the thumbs-up system, which allows you to celebrate the team’s best performers with a thumbs-up or emoji. You also have daily challenges that will return different amounts of XP for completing certain objectives.

While the factions don’t level up and improve, your guns do. You’ll start using preset classes, but after you level up your guns—which is obviously quicker the more enemies you kill—you’ll want to make a custom class, but it might take some time to unlock the best attachments. I use mostly the MP5, and levelling that up to fifty unlocked all the attachments for that weapon, allowing me to pick any five to equip. One thing I really like is that new weapons are unlocked by completing a specific gameplay challenge tied to that class of weapon. One example of this is the ACR, to unlock it you have to get ten longshot kills with an assault rifle. I found that this type of unlock system—rather than depending on player levels—encourages different styles of play depending on what you are trying to unlock. The issue is right now there aren’t that many weapons. For example, only two sniper rifles are available at launch. Hopefully, they add more.

Speaking of adding more, we recently got the announcement of GSK from Rainbow 6 Siege joining the XDefiant faction roster soon. So hopefully Ubisoft continue to support XDefiant with new weapons, factions, maps, and more for months and years to come.

More Needed

I love the pace of gameplay here and how each faction feels completely unique. I think that the lack of a Standard Team Deathmatch (TDM) or Free-For-All (FFA) mode is really hurting the game currently. Players that don’t want to play objective-based modes have no alternative in XDefiant right now. One promising sign that TDM or FFA will be added in the future was the announcement during Ubisoft Forward that Capture The Flag will be joining the game in season one.

Battle Passes and Microtransactions

Speaking of seasons, yes, there is a battle pass which consists of 50 levels. You don’t have to buy it as there are some free unlocks on there. But if you do choose to buy it, completing the battle pass will earn you enough credits to get the next battle pass free of charge. There is also a store where you can buy different cosmetic items for various factions among other things. Of course, just like Call of Duty, you can get battle pass or weapon XP boosts so there is a small pay-to-win element. That said, progression felt fast enough that I never saw the need for these kinds of tokens.

Technical Performance

On the technical front, the game performs great on my PC with an i9-14900k CPU and Nvidia 4080 Super GPU. I was able to achieve 110-120fps at max settings on a VRR-capable display. The occasional frame drops are unnoticeable. I also saw no bugs or framerate drops on Xbox Series X but I only tested the 60fps mode on the console.

Summary

In conclusion, XDefiant is a fast-paced and incredibly fun first-person shooter with some unique twists on a packed genre of competitive multiplayer shooters. It’s a good start and well worth your time, especially as a free-to-play game. To compete with the likes of Call of Duty or Overwatch it still needs some tweaks and additional content. I can’t wait to see where XDefiant goes, especially with season one on the way and Ubisoft’s proven track record supporting games like Rainbow 6 Siege or Division 2. I have a lot of hope that this game will be more than just a flash and a bang in the multiplayer shooter space.

Review Disclosure Statement: XDefiant was accessed by the reviewer as a free-to-play game for the purposes of review . For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy for more info.

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