XDefiant is less fun than ‘Tom Clancy’s Smash Bros.’ should be
Ubisoft’s XDefiant is an arena shooter with a familiar cast drawn from the publisher’s array of shooter and action-adventure franchises. Players can jump into a match as a Echelon spy straight out of Splinter Cell or use Watch Dogs hackers to confound their foes. It’s a fun premise backed up by competent, crisp gameplay — but does the game manage to make these matchups memorable?
XDefiant is a free-to-play, fast-paced, competitive shooter that allows players to pick from one of five factions: the Libertad revolutionaries from Far Cry 6;ex-Ghost Recon specialists known as Phantoms; agents from the Echelon spy agency; DedSec street hackers; and the Cleaners, former sanitation workers with a love of fire from the Division games. Ubisoft previously described the game as partially a “punk-rock mosh pit,” with earlier materials being significantly more colorful.
The XDefiant preview available to press was much more visually restrained, with liberal use of tacticool style. This is great for gameplay, because it’s easy to read both enemy movement and your own squad. But it lacks a certain je ne sais quoi; the closest thing I can say to try and sum up the game’s identity is that it’s Tom Clancy’s Smash Bros.
Players face off in 6v6 battles on maps both original to XDefiant andones drawn from Ubisoft’s Far Cry and Tom Clancy games. There are arena-style maps for XDefiant’s Domination and Occupy game modes, and then more linear paths for Zone Control and Escort.
Once the game kicks off, players can liberally swap among the factions and different weapon loadouts. Factions are the game’s character classes; every player will spend plenty of hands-on time with a weapon, but with a faction they have access to additional powers and
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