Ubisoft has published a sizeable roadmap that covers XDefiant’s first year on the market, outlining the next three seasons of content. In a blog post, the team highlighted the key development focuses going forward, including ‘bandwidth reduction efforts’ and improvements to XDefiant’s netcode and ‘hitreg’.
In the relatively transparent blog post, the team stated quite clearly that ‘the game is absolutely not dying‘, addressing recent community-driven concerns that XDefiant is already on shaky ground mere months after release.
But It Kind of Is
When it was released in May, XDefiant soared up the charts, quickly becoming regarded as the first Ubisoft title to hit substantial milestones as rapidly as it did. As a free-to-play, multiplatform shooter, it was essentially guaranteed that XDefiant would do well at launch, but the numbers quickly paled as gamers moved on to bigger and better things.
Today, the player count is wavering, the sentiment around the game has faded, and viewership on social and streaming platforms is slim to nothing.
But Ubisoft is determined to keep the game afloat, despite recent claims that it has a brief window to turn things around before the game enters dangerous territory.
In a blog post written by Mark Rubin on the Year-One Roadmap, it was said:
I just want to quickly address the status of the game. i.e. is the game dying? No, the game is absolutely not dying. We know there are things we need to improve like Netcode/Hitreg and adding more content to progression, but the game is doing well. We just want it to do better.
And we do that by addressing the concerns of our community which has always been the plan. Ubisoft is very much behind us and has allocated more resources to the team in order for us to do that.
Today, the team will reveal what’s coming in season two of XDefiant, but until then, users can leaf through the graphic provided by Ubisoft for the road ahead:
The driving focus of the team right now is stabilising the game’s networking elements, which have long been a sticking point for players worldwide. Plenty of content sits on the horizon, and the folks at Ubisoft are still determined to produce an esports ecosystem for XDefiant, but will there be enough players to keep the game afloat until then?
Are you still playing XDefiant? Let us know on the Insider Gaming Forum.
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Lies as usual
Gamers are thirsty for new, exciting experiences. Always. The initial success is from gamers seeing if ‘this’ is it.
Some think yes, some, no. In the case of xdefiant, I think most think no. Ubisoft have captured their share of ‘homeless’ gamers and now will start the egregious process of milking them. As revenues fall, they will add ever more leftfield mechanics, characters and gameplay loops. Milk the new core a little more. Rinse repeat until it becomes a financial burden.
Hey, maybe they will make a TV series and a couple of movies.
State of gaming 2024.