XDefiant for Xbox review: The only thing this "Call of Duty killer" is destroying is my remaining goodwill toward Ubisoft

XDefiant is Ubisoft’s latest foray into the free-to-play first-person shooter genre. While many hyped the game up as a “Call of Duty Killer” prior to its release, I have been a little more on the cautious side. Ubisoft has had a knack for chasing game trends and then binning a game in short order when it doesn’t deliver. On top of that, I prefer not to see any one game “killed” by another. I do want to see genuine competition between franchises that invigorates fans to play and fosters creativity and innovation so that the games we love become better with time. Instead, it seems like the teams behind XDefiant are hoping the game can break out exclusively on the absence of skill-based matchmaking.

XDefiant review: Gameplay

While there are a lot of comparisons between Call of Duty and XDefiant, I prefer to compare Ubisoft’s XDefiant to Blizzard’s Overwatch. Both games are multiplayer-only, both are free-to-play, and both require players to choose a character who has dedicated abilities along with an ultimate that generates during the length of the match. XDefiant’s player factions are inspired by characters from other beloved Ubisoft franchises, including The Division, Splinter Cell, and Watch Dogs. 

The abilities available to players during matches are rooted in those other franchises, as well. The Division’s Cleaners faction, for example, can make use of a drone with an attached flamethrower to clear corridors. Other factions are equipped with invisibility-granting suits, deployable shields, and medical equipment for team support. There are five factions currently available, and it is clear that Ubisoft intends for XDefiant to grow over time with additional factions. Could we possibly see Assassins, Avatar or even Star Wars’ Kay Vess join the roster at some point? The potential is certainly there.

At launch, XDefiant has only a handful of objective-based multiplayer modes. These include Zone capture, a domination-like mode where players need to stand in a zone until it is secured for their team, and Escort, which closely resembles Overwatch’s Payload playlist. A robot is situated in one area of the map, and one team must defend it while the other must stay close to it to escort the bot to a designated point. The team that gets the bot to travel the furthest declares victory. 

Another mode, Hotshot, is the closest that XDefiant has to offer to Team Deathmatch. Players familiar with Call of Duty’s Cranked and Kill Confirmed playlists may find that Hotshot is a strange mashup of the two, with players becoming faster and more lethal as they eliminate and collect the tags dropped by enemies. Despite being a popular mode, it shows up infrequently in Welcome playlists.

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The perils of SBMM (and its absence)

Skill-based matchmaking is an algorithm deployed in online match-made games that ensures players are finding opponents who are roughly in the same skill range as themselves. This ensures that one team is not always being demolished by the opposing side and that players are evenly matched. Despite SBMM’s good intentions, it has drawn the ire of influencers and content creators, as well as their followers, all of whom believe that it is holding them back from being better at the game. If only they could just steamroll new players, their K/Ds and clips would be so much better. Ubisoft has latched onto this hatred for SBMM in shooter communities, and XDefiant instead only offers SBMM in Ranked playlists. For all of XDefiant's casual playlists, SBMM is disabled, and you can run into anybody at any time.

The lack of SBMM extends even into XDefiant’s Welcome playlist, which on its surface is intended for new players who are learning the ropes. The Welcome playlist does have SBMM turned on and a level 25. However, there's a significant enough jump in access to customizations available that even the welcome playlist was a slaughterhouse for new players with limited weapons and upgrades available to them. Players with more time invested (up to the level 25 cap) were also able to jump into the Welcome playlist for an endless buffet of ‘easy’ kills. 

Nearly every encounter for new players ended in a ‘Crushing Loss’. Matches were overwhelmingly unbalanced, with players almost at XDefiant’s level cap crushing those who were just loading in for the first time. I know the gut reaction to players who enjoy an SBMM-free experience is going to be shouting “get good”, here. But the issue isn’t skill-related.

Even being on the winning side of these encounters feels vapid. Sure, I’m racking up a body count on the leaderboard, but it’s not helping me improve at the game to steamroll somebody who doesn’t even know how their equipment works.

SBMM isn't just useful in matchmaking and finding players for a lobby. It's also useful for balancing out teams. And it's not as easy as flipping a switch to turn the algorithms on. It requires playtesting and balance on the part of the devs, adjusting the systems that divvy up players into lobbies and teams based on feedback and match outcomes. At launch, XDefiant's SBMM algorithm seems to struggle with balancing teams, aiding in these crushing losses and teams being stacked with extreme opposites instead of a more reasonable blend of players on each side.

XDefiant review: Visual and audio

Built on Ubisoft's Snowdrop engine, there's a lot about XDefiant that feels ripped straight from The Division. On one hand, it was nice to have that look and feel back. The Division is one of my top games of all time and I have nearly 3000 hours in the franchise. There were certain maps that were distinctly drawn from The Division, and the nostalgia hit was a nice touch. 

The maps, however, were far too large for a standard 6v6 multiplayer experience. I distinctly remember Homefront on the Xbox 360 featuring 32-player maps that were nowhere near as large as XDefiant’s 12-player maps. It leaves players taking far too long to make it to objectives, and there is too much lull before you reach potential combat scenarios. There is also the issue that you may not be able to visually distinguish players when you do run into them. Many character models utilize the gray and black color palette, with insufficient distinction from the gray and black and green surroundings to help you pick out enemies. Call of Duty has been experimenting adding blue and red outlines to combatants in some playlists to help with this issue. For all of the outrage over some of the more exuberant Operator bundles, they, too, help with picking out players in the environment.

Concerning audio, there is voice acting for the playable characters. While there are some cheesy puns, no standout one-liners make any of the characters particularly endearing. Gun audio also feels muffled, even without suppressors. Enemy footsteps are not distinct from player and teammate audio, and it can be difficult to rely on audio clues for situational awareness. 

XDefiant review: Accessibility

XDefiant does feature some basic accessibility settings in the menu, though they are not quite as in-depth as what we see in the competition. Accessibility is a vital balancing act when we’re talking competitive PvP gameplay. Features need to make the game feel fair and approachable without giving anybody a significant advantage over those who are not using those features. Adjustments for dead zones and sensitivity are present in XDefiant, but support for non-verbal communication such as enemy and object pings is sadly absent. However, there is the option to turn the flash from grenades dark as opposed to bright white, which is an accessibility feature even Call of Duty also only recently added. 

XDefiant review: Should you play it?

XDefiant is, at the very least, worth giving a try. It is free to download, free-to-play, but there are microtransactions, including a battle pass. You can jump in and give it your time and grind out the relatively easy achievement list without every dumping any money into it. I can appreciate that it doesn't require any sort of commitment beyond just time and maybe the effort to convince your friends to try it out with you.

As a former PvP fan of The Division, however, I found myself wondering what happened with XDefiant. Where did it go wrong, and how is it that it falls so far from the relatively solid PvP experience The Division offered that it could have used as a foundation? You can see some of that influence in what The Division had to offer players peaking through from time to time, but overall it just feels under-baked and uninspired.

Call of Duty needs a direct competitor. Battlefield is in shambles, Halo has become a sibling franchise now that Microsoft owns both properties, and there’s next to nothing else on the same scale as COD that can compete for the team-based PvP experience. It’s reasonable to hope for XDefiant to step up to the plate, and with some time and finesse, maybe it actually could. 

In its current state, however, I find XDefiant to be little more than a shell wrapped around an amalgamation of gaming trends that are loosely assembled with spit and wishes. I want to see it grow into something better. I do. Ubisoft has a history of pumping out trend-chasing free-to-play games and then shutting them down when they don’t strike gold on the first swing of the axe. Hyperscape’s soul is but a little way above our heads. I’d hesitate to become too attached to XDefiant.