opinion: XDefiant could be a pretty strong shooter, even if it”s just a mix of familiar ingredients.
XDefiant? Wasn”t that that generic looking shooter in the Tom Clancy universe? Something like that is what I”m thinking when I”m asked to participate in a play-on event for the editorial team. Of course I agree anyway, more out of a sense of duty than curiosity.
On the day of the event, I am waiting alone in the lobby of XDefiant for other players; the two colleagues who were supposed to take part with me dropped out at short notice. On top of that, there are a bunch of technical problems and I keep getting kicked off the server. Not perfect conditions. But nevertheless, two hours later I don”t really want to log out and play through to the end of the event.
Yikes, this is fun
I admittedly had few expectations for the Free2Play multiplayer shooter from the house of Ubisoft, which of course made it easier for the game to surprise me. Nevertheless, XDefiant has managed a feat: To make me, of all people, curious for more, who is on the one hand a tactics- and 6v6-muffle and on the other hand a fan of epic Battlefield battles. After the event, I”m actually looking forward to the closed beta and the release!
But what kind of shooter is this anyway? XDefiant sends you into 6v6 battles and lets you fight as one of five classes so far with different special abilities and gadgets. A total of five modes are played that require a lot of team play, including classics such as Domination or Hardpoint. The trailer provides first, meanwhile already older gameplay impressions:
Original shooter or soulless mixture?
This all doesn”t sound incredibly innovative and XDefiant also primarily mixes together familiar features from other games. However, the result seems to be exactly the mixture of powerful special abilities and straightforward shooter gameplay – with an emphasis on the latter – that was advertised by the developers.
When I played it, I actually liked almost all the elements that are important to me in shooters:
- Weapons: The shooting irons feel powerful, have decent but controllable recoil and are distinctly different. With a rich selection of mods, they can be customised as needed.
- Maps: While Ubisoft has reused scenarios from previous games like Ghost Recon, The Division and Rainbow Six, the maps are still quite creative and play well. For example, we fight in a film studio, a shopping mall, post-apocalyptic New York or a drug plantation in South America. The battlefields are well designed and play fairly and varied.
- Special abilities: Each class has powerful special abilities that can do a lot, but don”t make you completely invincible. They recharge slowly through successful actions and are rarely available. This forces us to use them wisely.
(In escort mode, your team must always play together to succeed.) This all comes together as I play Escort mode in the last round, where my team has to run a robot across the map within a time limit. Just before the finish line in brightly lit Times Square, our advance stalls. We have about 20 seconds left when my special ability lights up, finally ready.
With a quick decision, I activate an energy shield surrounding me and am simultaneously handed a futuristic weapon. I charge forward and my team follows me: our cloaked agent takes out the entrenched snipers, the rest of the team uses me as cover and follows me to the robot. A few seconds before the end of the game, we make it to the finish line. What fun!
(In escort mode, your team must always play together to succeed.) Can XDefiant succeed?
Although I had a lot of fun with XDefiant, there are still some question marks: Can the shooter even find a niche between Call of Duty, Apex Legends and Overwatch? Will there be regular exciting new content after the release? Will the technology keep up with the launch? All this remains to be seen. But anyone who is even remotely enthusiastic about shooters should keep an eye on XDefiant in my opinion.
