Many games have tried and failed to replicate theSuper Smash Bros.formula.Nickelodeon All-Star Brawlwas terrible.Multiversusfared a little better, but the beta was still taken offline recently so Player First Games could make some changes and launch at a later date.Ubisoft, to its credit, has at least not made a fighting game for its menu of IP soup. It’s made a first-person shooter, and a not half bad one at that.
XDefiant’s marketing is dominated by the characters you know and love coming together to fight in 6v6 battles. The thing is, I don’t really care about any Ubisoft characters. Until Ezio Auditore brings his hidden blade to the gun fight, there’s nobody worth rooting for here. The first two Watch Dogs games are pretty good, but I don’t particularly care about any characters in them. Far Cry is mid. And I’ve never played a Tom Clancy game, whose characters take up a significant portion of the XDefiant roster.
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What I do like, however, is a good first-person shooter. There are a few things that an FPS needs to nail for me to have a good time: movement, gunplay, variety, and movement. I played a lot of PUBG back in the day, but left it behind because the movement was too slow and games too samey. Counter-Strike has too little variety for me, despite the gunplay being unparalleled. Ohanotherdrab military base? Give me bright colours and fight-changing abilities likeValorantandApex Legendsany day.
XDefiant sits somewhere between CS:GO and Valorant on this scale. It’s rooted in realism, but the roster of factions add some spice to proceedings through their different abilities. Cleaners (from The Division) are flamethrower-wielding powerhouses, Echelon (Splinter Cell) are masters of stealth, Phantoms (Ghost Recon) are tanks, Libertad (Far Cry) are healers, and DeadSec (Watch Dogs) are hackers who focus on cancelling and reversing opposing abilities. The latter will be the first earnable faction in the game, and they were my favourite to use in the preview build.
Factions are loosely themed based on the backgrounds of games they hail from, but abilities are balance-focused before anything else. Every faction felt strong – I didn’t get on with Cleaners, though it seems all of my opponents did – but there were always counterplay options at your disposal. Fully invisible Echelon agents will be the bane of your existence, but the implementation of the first five factions is generally well balanced, and makes XDefiant more than the sum of its parts. Whether new factions will upset the apple cart remains to be seen, but that’s a question you could ask of any live-service game.
you’re able to switch characters every time you die, which gives you a wealth of tactical opportunities, even if it may lean towards pay-to-win strategies as more purchasable factions are released. We’ll have to see whether every faction is available for free through progression before making that call, though. I was playing with random teammates, press and influencers all, none of whom used their microphones, and I still felt the power of counterpicking a new faction to deal with a tricky opponent. This versatility will only increase when playing with friends or communicative teammates.
You can also switch loadouts upon your death, and while we only had a few basic options to choose from, they all felt good to use. Shotguns can one-shot up close, as can snipers from afar if you can line it up right across the twisting maps busy with obstructions. Assault Rifles felt strongest, and SMGs weakest, but Ubisoft has pledged to support the game with seasonal balance patches where this sort of thing will be tweaked and addressed.
Perhaps my favourite part of XDefiant was the maps. Varied in both style and layout, they switched between locations from a handful of games I haven’t played and kept everything fresh. The Watch Dogs map in a Google-esque Silicon Valley office was my favourite, as you power through rooms of destroyed furniture and superfluous ball pits to take out your opponents. It’s as whimsical as it is tactical, and every piece of terrain, whether you’re in a destroyed subway station or an abandoned zoo, is placed with precision to create sight lines and ample cover. Have you ever shotgunned an invisible assassin from behind a life-size model whale? In XDefiant, you’re able to.
There are five game modes to choose from, and all of them feel fun and balanced. Domination and Occupy are Arena shooter classics, while XDefiant invention Hotshot uses a bounty system to grant buffs. There are two linear modes, Escort and Zone Control, which are self-explanatory if you’ve played games like this before.
Of my four key FPS attributes that define my experiences, XDefiant nails three. The gunplay is great, even if it needs a couple of balance tweaks, and the variety is fantastic, keeping things fun for round after round. Between different maps, abilities, and modes, there’s plenty to keep your attention. The movement is good, too. Not Apex Legends good, hence it only gets one out of the two possible movement ticks, but it’s not the sluggish, bouncy stuff that puts me off Halo and Overwatch.
If you’re a Ubisoft stan, this game is a no-brainer. It’s great fun, and you’ll likely enjoy the characters and references a lot more than me. If you’re a noobisoft like me, there’s still plenty to sink your teeth into. I can already see myself becoming a DeadSec main to support my teammates, just because of their abilities. If you can put the constant, infuriating mentions of the Ubiverse to the back of your mind, you’ll find a competent shooter with enough variety to keep you wanting one more game.
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