XDefiant is a new 6v6 competitive shooter being developed by Ubisoft San Francisco and will feature various characters from Ubisoft’s many different IPs such as The Division, Watchdogs and Splinter Cell amongst others. The game promises a bunch of game modes and maps and seems to be pushing itself to be a direct competitor to games such as Overwatch 2 and Counter-Strike. Thanks to Ubisoft we got some hands on time with the closed beta and decided to check it out.

Of the many game modes in XDefiant they are split into two distinctive categories, arcade and linear, the arcade category is devised of maps that have multiple routes and lots of points of cover which players can utilise to strategically attack their opponents, the linear game types are played on maps that have a distinctive start and end point and usually involve objectives such as escorting a payload. The arcade game modes include your standard domination type with 6 players facing off against each other with the objective being to capture and hold control points, Occupy is basically the same as domination except there is only one control point that moves around the map, the last arcade mode is Hot Shot which is basically a carbon copy of Call Of Duty’s ‘Kill Confirmed mode. The linear modes include Escort which basically involves defending a robot whilst it traverses from one end of the map to the other and Zone Control which is a twist on the domination mode where instead of having 3 capture points on the map there are 5 and they have to be captured in a linear order as you progress through the map.

As you can see there are a diverse range of modes in XDefiant and this ensures that there is a game type for many different types of players. There are also a wide range of character types to choose from with all of them being instantly recognisable if you are a fan of Ubisoft’s games. There are 5 factions in the game (with more likely to be added in the future depending on the success of the game) these include Libertad from the Far Cry series, Echelon from Splinter Cell, The Cleaners from The Division, Phantoms from Ghost Recon and Dedsec from Watch Dogs 2, in addition to the 5 factions you can customise your character even further as each faction has several different abilities you can choose such as incendiary rounds, incinerator drones, regenerative health, blitz shields and many, many others. Having these sub abilities is a great way for players to not only be able to customise a characters looks via the faction they pick but also be able to find an ability that suits their particular playstyle as abilities range from support types such as being able to heal your fellow team members through to offensive abilities that provide extra damage, this sets it apart from games such as Overwatch 2 where you may like the look of a certain character but not want to play them because of the abilities that come with them, XDefiant gives you the freedom of not only choosing how you look but also customising your abilities.

The game is fast and furious and the time to kill in XDefiant is super quick which means you better know how to aim your weapons as if you miss one shot you are pretty much guaranteed that you will be losing any battle with your opponents, the game is definitely very skill based and plays at lightning speed compared to the likes of Call Of Duty or Counter Strike. Being a team based shooter you are much better off working with your team than trying to be a lone wolf, especially in game modes that require escorting a payload or capturing objectives, play the objectives your team mates will appreciate it. The game in its beta form ran really well and appeared to be very well optimised however one of the most important parts of a shooter, the gunplay, didn’t really feel that great to me, the guns didn’t have any weight to them and there was a distinct lack of feedback when landing shots on your opponent making the whole combat experience feel very ‘floaty’.

Also the incredibly short time to kill made the majority of abilities feel useless as you are pretty much dead before you can even get a chance to fire one off, maybe the combat just isn’t to my tastes but it is hard to feel engaged in combat when your gun feels like a pea shooter and victory in every battle feels like it is based on who can get the first shot in. There were also a fair few connection issues over the few days that I played the beta, resulting in rubber banding through to not being able to connect to the servers at all, though I am sure these will be eliminated before release.

XDefiant is intriguing, it offers a lot of diverse game modes and character and even gun customisation, will it be enough to drag people away from Overwatch 2 and the new upcoming Counter-Strike 2? Ubisoft is hoping that the familiar list of characters and maps based on its other IPs will entice people to try the game out and seeing that the game will be completely free on release I don’t see any reason not to give the game a shot, the action is fun and frantic and if the gunplay can be given a bit more tuning before release then I think Ubisoft might just have a hit on their hands!