Ubisoft released their highly anticipated first-person shooter, XDefiant, on May 21st, 2024. The free-to-play FPS is a fast-paced team game that shows similarities to other games in the genre, specifically Call of Duty. With the hopes of becoming a competitor with CoD, XDefiant offers a new challenge for the FPS giant. Now, two weeks after its release, we ask if XDefiant is worth it.
Gameplay
Rivaling the biggest FPS in gaming history, XDefiant uses nearly identical movement to CoD. Movement speed is noticeably impacted by the weapon you carry, and there is no tactical sprint. To keep the game tempo up, there is no prone function leaving players with just the ability to crouch. Sliding gives a good advantage when pushing around corners, but without a tactical sprint, there is no movement boost for sliding like there is in CoD.
Gunplay in XDefiant needs to be more consistent. The guns themselves are easy to use and have little to no recoil, but the time to kill is always different. Regardless of hitting headshots or body shots, killing enemies is never the same experience. In one fight you can eliminate a player in just a few shots but in the next fight, your gun stops doing any damage, and no matter how many shots you land the opponent will survive.
Weapons
Players are given the option to create a custom loadout at level 1. This is mostly useless as you have zero attachments for your guns, but it allows you to see all the guns and customization options in the game right away. The preset weapons the game gives you are all the first guns for each weapon type with attachments. This allows you to use and level up the base guns immediately and unlock your next weapon faster.
Unlocking new guns is done by completing challenges for each weapon class. You will have to deal damage and earn specific types of kills, like hip-fire kills, to unlock new guns. They also offer weapons through the battle pass. There are several different types of attachment categories for guns, each with its group of attachments to be unlocked. Build your gun for speed to move and reload quickly, or build it for maximum damage to rack up the kills. Luckily, there is no meta-gun and all of the weapons feel balanced which is one of the best aspects of the game.
Factions
XDefiant features five factions of playable characters with more to come. Each faction has a passive ability, an active ability, and an ultra ability. Using your abilities strategically is key to winning games. Some abilities are meant to do damage, others support your team, and a few benefit the user. Each ability has a cooldown and the ultra charges up based on your performance.
The factions for the most part are fairly balanced. There is a faction that is given the passive ability of having 120 health, 20 points more than everyone else. With the already shaky hit registration, players in this faction are given a larger-than-anticipated advantage. The issue with this faction is on broken gameplay rather than the faction itself, but most players would agree it could get nerfed down 5 to 10 points.
Matchmaking
Almost every game mode in XDefiant is already in CoD. This makes for a smooth transition between the games for players already familiar with the variety of modes. They also have a ranked playlist for players looking for equally skilled competition, or to see where they rank.
XDefiant does not use skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) to search for games which is a drastic change from CoD. Without SBMM, you are thrown into a game with players of all levels. Your first game could be against a team of max-level players which could be discouraging to new players. SBMM has been a polarizing topic in games in recent years. While some feel it helps players get better over time, others argue the system is broken and gets abused by people purposely tanking their stats to get easy lobbies.
Overall
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Familiar game modes make each game easy to finish and understand. The lack of SBMM is frustrating when you are an average player because you may go multiple games against players significantly better before you find a lobby of equal or worse opponents. The easy-to-use weapons and loadout system are inviting for even the newest gamers.
The factions all have pros and cons, but one faction is given 20 extra health every life which can make them feel overpowered. The inaccurate hit registration only adds fuel to the fire when you fight these tanky enemies. Emptying your magazine into an opponent’s back and seeing they still had 15 health left leaves players feeling helpless, especially knowing they would have killed a soldier from any other faction. All in all, XDefiant is a fun shooter to play with friends. It is easy to pick up and fans of FPS games should give it a chance.
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