The closed beta for XDefiant has come and gone.<br /><br />Hundreds of thousands watched on Twitch, thousands played, and Ubisoft got a ton of valuable feedback and data.<br /><br />After a week of playing, here's the main takeaway:<br /><br />XDefiant is surprisingly in a unique spot to succeed but it needs to make these changes.<br /><br />Let's be real honest, if XDefiant wasn't free-to-play, no one would bother buying it — we have Call of Duty for our online arcade-arena shooter.<br /><br />Love it or hate it, Call of Duty will always be king.<br /><br />But can you answer this? Name one current, popular, and free-to-play arcade-arena shooter that doesn't prioritize heroes.<br /><br />Every popular arcade shooter is a battle royale. And the arcade arena shooter market, specifically, is dominated by Overwatch. But that's all about hero abilities.<br /><br />XDefiant prioritizes gunplay — the heroes' specials are an afterthought.<br /><br />XDefiant is basically a free-to-play, small-player count, Call of Duty experience being made by a competent AAA developer.<br /><br />There's nothing else like it in the FPS market. But that won't be enough.<br /><br />If XDefiant just launches with more content and bug fixes, it won't last long.<br /><br />Think about it this way, if Black Ops II got a 1-to-1 remaster in today's market, it wouldn't be the banger everyone assumes.<br /><br />The market and player base has evolved and moved on from that experience.<br /><br />And that's what XDefiant currently feels like — a barebones, decades-old arcade shooter. It's a fun, but very shallow experience.<br /><br />Ubisoft is going to have to make 3 fundamental changes to XDefiant to create a meatier free-to-play product with staying power.<br /><br />The movement in XDefiant is good — I'm sure you've seen the "movement king" videos floating around.<br /><br />It looks and feels great from your point of view, but from everyone else's, it's impossible to consistently hit high-movement players.<br /><br />Ubisoft can go one of two ways.<br /><br />I don't think anyone wants them to nerf anything. Movement has become one of the expected skill gaps in modern arcade shooters.<br /><br />Instead, they need to make the transitions between hopping, sliding, and strafing look more fluid from the spectator's perspective.<br /><br />Apex Legends handles complex transitions perfectly.<br /><br />If Ubisoft can smoothen everything out in this game, it's going to be like butter to play.<br /><br />Go check us out on:<br />Twitter: @giantnerdco<br /> Website: www.giantnerd.co<br /> Email: ben@giantnerd.co<br /><br />#gameplay #gaming #fps #fpsgames #newgameplay #gamer #firstpersonshooter #gamingvideos #gamingcommunity #videogames #gamingclips #ubisoft #ubisoftgames #arenashooter #tomclancy #ghostrecon #thedivision2 #thedivision #splintercell #farcry6 #watchdogs #watchdogs2 #twitch #twitchclips #twitchtv #farcry #xdefiant #xdefiantgameplay #xdefiantbeta
