June 12’s Ubisoft Forward 2023 revealed more details on the upcoming arena-shooter XDefiant, following on from the game’s exceptionally popular Beta back in April 2023.
The FPS, which has a number of aspects in common with the behemoth Call of Duty series, is developed by Ubisoft San Francisco. Former CoD pro Patrick ‘ACHES’ Price is also contributing to the game’s production.
Introduced via a compilation showing stars Scump, Jev, Apathy and Karma enjoying the game, Ubisoft thanked the 1.5 million players who dropped in to the free-to-play Beta and prior playtests.
Mark Rubin, XDefiant’s lead developer, then shared more details and explained what is to come. Ubisoft San Francisco revealed that they’re targeting a summer 2023 release, but will only take place after another open session, taking place from June 21 to 23.
The deliberately short session is designed to test the game’s servers, new net code and more. It’ll be open to players on all platforms, meaning PC, Xbox and PlayStation players can drop in to their hearts’ content.
A six week XDefiant Pre-Season will take place when it launches later in the summer. You can check out the full XDefiant Preseason Roadmap below:
It’ll incorporate more or less all the content we experienced with the Closed Beta from April, lasting for six weeks and giving the devs time to ensure it’s all working flawlessly.
That’ll be succeeded by Year 1 content, bringing 4 new Factions, 12 new weapons and 12 new maps to XDefiant. Year 1’s content will be split across four seasons, an approach Ubisoft have employed in their other live-service games, like Rainbow Six Siege.
Each will have its own ‘Faction Codename’, a 90-tier Battle Pass and bring 3 new weapons and 3 new maps. You can check out XDefiant’s full Year 1 Roadmap below:
The content won’t stop there either, with ‘New Arena and Progression Modes’ promised, as well as welcome playlists and a dedication to ‘Player Protection’. Presumably, this’ll be along the lines of a dedicated anti-cheat and fair play charters that all XDefiant players agree to adhere to.
We’ll get more time with the game on June 21. You can be sure to read more about it right here at Twinfinite.
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