The Call of Duty killer or another flop like Splitgate?

A new game is on the rise, and based on the closed beta last week, it’s being deemed as the potential COD killer. From the creator of series like Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry, Ubisoft has been developing a free-to-play, multiplayer shooter game called XDefiant. Two years after the original announcement, the gameplay from the closed beta looks solid. The game is pretty much Ubisoft’s take on Call of Duty, but brings the Ubisoft uniqueness through character factions and maps based on their other game series.

XDefiant is a fast-paced six v. six and offers a couple of different game modes, those similar to COD, like hardpoint and kill confirmed. The game only offers a small selection of weaponry, but they’re all heavy hitters, like the Double Barrel shotgun and the Vector .45 ACP, and you’re allowed to customize each gun with a variety of attachments that are unlocked from leveling up the gun. Now although this all may seem lacking, after the full release, the team is looking to beef up the armory and continuously add more maps and engaging game modes.

Now what makes XDefiant unique, is the different factions and maps, all based on the different series that Ubisoft has released. There are currently five different factions; Libertad from Far Cry, Phantoms from Ghost Recon, Echelon from Splinter Cell, Cleaners from The Division, and Dedsec from Watchdogs. Each faction has a unique set of abilities that are based on the game they come from, and these games are also what the maps are based on. This is the biggest difference that separates XDefiant and COD, but is it enough for Ubisoft to have a sustainable game on their hands?

We’ve seen this storyline before with Splitgate, an upcoming game back in 2021 that brought in a new and unique factor with the use of portals, and the community believed that it was going to take down the classic series of Halo, but that was far from the case. It had reached tens of thousands of concurrent players at one point, but dropped to just a few thousand months later, so looking at XDefiant, I’m hoping the same fate isn’t waiting for them and that Ubisoft delivers a long-lasting game that players look forward to like COD. It seems like a great and fun game that combines the need for good gun skills and the strategically using character abilities, so I hope it survives.