New Shooter Game Made By Former COD Devs DELAYED

Another stumbling block on Ubisoft’s rocky road to launch is the free-to-play shooter XDefiant. Delay again: former Call of Duty boss Mark Rubin’s multiplayer FPS has been postponed while the developers iron out lingering network performance issues.

XDefiant Misses March Release Window

 

In a statement posted across XDefiant’s social media channels, the development team announced the game will not make its previously targeted late March release date window. While an exact new launch timing wasn’t provided, Ubisoft cited needing to make “some improvements” before being ready to go live.

The XDefiant team expressed hope that this upcoming network test will allow them to finally “lock a launch date” and begin discussing post-launch content plans for the divisive shooter project.

A Long Road for the Call of Duty-Style Shooter

Launched in 2021 with the codename “BattleCat,” XDefiant is a free-to-play multiplayer FPS based heavily on Rubin’s previous Call of Duty work. It aims to marry Call of Duty’s gunplay with hero-based skills and team-objective gameplay similar to Overwatch.

But XDefiant hasn’t been an easy ride to begin with. Initially due in 2022, the game was later moved up to an early 2023 release window to allow more time for sprucing up and network work.

Even that revised early 2023 target proved overly ambitious. By November 2022, Ubisoft confirmed XDefiant had been delayed indefinitely due to continued netcode and connectivity struggles. “We don’t want to just get the game out—we want to make sure it has great netcode,” Rubin explained at the time.

Now an entire year later, those network woes still appear to be holding XDefiant back from launching to the masses.

A Troubled Dev Cycle Plagued by “Fratboy Culture”

While undoubtedly frustrating for eager fans, XDefiant’s latest delay should come as little surprise given the numerous reports over the past year detailing the game’s extremely turbulent and mismanaged development process.

A damning report published by Insider Gaming earlier in March shed light on what current and former Ubisoft staffers described as a toxic “frat boy culture” on the XDefiant team.

“The Boys Club is a closed group of protected individuals who think they are better than everyone else and do as they please without any repercussions,” one developer stated about a clique of directors and executives that “caused constant problems” during XDefiant’s development.

“The constant changing of approved features,” among a litany of other mismanagement complaints levied against “The Boys Club,” reportedly led to significant delays for XDefiant, with one source estimating its release being pushed back up to a year.

Other developers pointed to Ubisoft’s obsession with mimicking Call of Duty’s success as a driving force behind many of XDefiant’s struggles. This led to months of “undue focus” being placed on trying to precisely emulate the iconic net code and connectivity of Activision’s juggernaut FPS franchise.

“Issues with the game’s netcode were well-known long before [November 2022], but undue focus was given to fixing it while ignoring other areas of the game,” one developer told Insider Gaming.

Too Little Too Late for Ubisoft’s COD Challenger?

At this point in its bumpy near-two-year development saga, it’s fair to wonder if XDefiant will manage to make it across the finish line relatively unscathed let alone find sustained success in today’s oversaturated live-service shooter market.

Even if the network concerns can finally be ironed out and the game launches sometime in 2023, XDefiant now faces much fiercer competition than when it was first revealed back in 2021 as a Call of Duty challenger.

Not only are juggernauts like Call of Duty and Battlefield still top dogs, but the intervening time has seen the explosive rise of Games-as-a-Service hits like Apex Legends and Valorant. Meanwhile, the likes of Warzone 2.0 and even Microsoft’s rebooted Gears of War await in the wings.

In other words, XDefiant’s moment may have already come and gone. Its constant delays and reported behind-the-scenes dysfunction appear to have allowed Ubisoft’s shooter aspirations to be seriously outpaced by an increasingly crowded field of competition.

That said, Call of Duty and the XDefiant crew’s FPS pedigree alone mean the game can’t be completely dismissed outright. This week’s network test will give us the best read yet on whether the game is finally on the right track or if Ubisoft is simply delaying the inevitable cancellation of a project too troubled to overcome its woes.

Whether it launches soon and flops, gets canceled entirely, or miraculously manages to course correct and find an audience, XDefiant has already solidified its spot as one of this generation’s most fascinating gaming disappointments from a development perspective. Only time will tell if its legacy can still ultimately be salvaged on the gameplay side.