Ubisoft's XDefiant Fails PlayStation, Xbox Certification | Push Square

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The launch of upcoming free-to-play shooter XDefiant has been delayed after Ubisoft shared the title has failed to pass certification on both PlayStation and Xbox platforms. The game was expected to be releasing at the end of last month, but following this setback, a new release date depends on whether platform holders Sony and Microsoft give it a pass in the next two weeks. If they do, launch can be set for the end of September. If a day one update is required to fix any lingering issues, XDefiant will be out in early October.

In a surprisingly open blog post to the community, executive producer Mark Rubin shares more details surrounding the pre-release submission process. He reveals the submission process for platform holders is not based on the game's quality; rather, it's about looking for «compliance bugs». They're flaws relating to how a title interacts with each console — examples given include Trophies tracking correctly and whether friend lists are being updated with the correct information. These issues are entirely separate from the sort of problems consumers pick up on at release, such as glitches or a bad frame rate. As such, a certification fail is not reflective of XDefiant's quality as a general experience.

While developers are unable to share full details due to NDAs put in place, some have revealed on ResetEra how it's very common for most games to fail their first certification submission. We're only hearing about this failure publicly as the XDefiant team has chosen to be very open with its community. Game developers have spoken of extremely specific certification requirements that could stop a game from launching, such as controller button symbols needing to be the exact right shape and colour. It