XDefiant needs to unbind itself from Tom Clancy to succeed

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XDefiant is Ubisoft’s latest multiplayer title, a first-person hero-ish shooter that throws together characters from its multiple franchises into one big arena. I got the chance to play XDefiant, and one impression I formed is that Ubisoft is hamstringing itself by keeping the game so Tom Clancy-flavored. While it’s no longer branded as such, XDefiant still carries a heavy Clancy vibe that smothers its charms.

Ubisoft first announced the game in 2021, when it was called “Tom Clancy’s XDefiant.” It’s a multiplayer first-person shooter, where each player selects a character from a faction based on one of Ubisoft’s franchises. These include the Phantoms from Ghost Recon, Echelon from Splinter Cell, Yaran rebels from Far Cry, Cleaners from The Division and DedSec hackers from Watch Dogs.

Each hero comes with their own abilities based on their home titles — Echelon spies can go invisible or use their goggles to spy enemies, for example. However, all of them felt similar during gameplay, and this is in part due to the fact that some of these characters are not from FPSes. They suffer somewhat in the transition. This also means that any differences between the factions, in terms of character and design if not gameplay, has been diluted.

For example, I thought while loading up the preview, “Hey, I like Splinter Cell. Perhaps I should try playing one of the Echelon spies.” I didn’t expect the gameplay to be exactly similar, but I was hoping it would at least have the same sort of vibe, for lack of a better term. And it doesn’t — the aesthetics, powers and shooting are all vastly different from that game’s home series.

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