In September 2023, Ubisoft had a free-to-play gem on their hands — XDefiant. The gameplay was good, the community was bustling, transparency from the developers was highly praised and most of all, the game had a really passionate and dedicated community. Six months on and things are somewhat different for XDefiant, with fans increasingly expressing their frustrations with the lack of updates.
According to Ubisoft’s Q3 2024 earnings report, XDefiant is scheduled to be released by the end of Q4 2024 (March 31st, 2024), but with just one week until the date, there’s been zero indication of a release. The once-loathed transparency is now seemingly dead and XDefiant hasn’t had an update for some time. Speaking with developers at Ubisoft, who wished to remain anonymous because they are not authorized to speak about company plans, it’s understood that XDefiant was aiming to release during the last week of February when this internal release date was made public via Ubisoft’s earnings call — a deadline that was obviously missed.
Insider Gaming understands that XDefiant has missed dozens of internal targets in the past couple of years, including release dates, putting the game firmly in the realm of other Ubisoft titles that is constantly in limbo. Developers working on the project are becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress and in short, the game’s shortcomings stem from the executive’s pursuit of trying to copy Call of Duty, rather than building their own game. Creatively, it’s frustrating for the team, but from a technical perspective, it also presents new challenges and has become the main reason for delays. “The neverending hunt to chase COD and add pointless stuff always breaks the current build”, said one source, which often then requires days of fixing the game.
As is generally always the case with games in limbo, the root of the problem comes from the higher-ups with the developers left with the burden. In truth, if you’re a fan of XDefiant, I would be a little more wary in the future of the whole ‘open transparency’ thing — as it usually has bigger implications and doesn’t reflect what’s truly going on.
So the big question — When will XDefiant release? It’s a great question and is likely why Ubisoft has been silent on the matter for months because in short, I don’t think even they know.
The good news is that the game isn’t in danger of being canceled and development is still ongoing at its usual rate. In fact, just today, XDefiant had a substantial playtest to test the netcode, online store, social media tabs, etc. and the current plan is to have another large open public test session as soon as possible. So while I don’t have any internal release dates right now (and to be honest it’d be pointless saying anyway), we’re probably still a good few months from release as feedback from the next public test session is taken on board.
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