XDefiant is fantastic – but can it last with a new Call of Duty on the horizon?

I’m having a brilliant time with XDefiant. I must admit that I wasn’t particularly sold on the game prior to its release. Didn’t play any of the early access periods or betas, didn’t do any press previews or anything like that. Given how hectic and packed this time of year is with brilliant games, I decided to just boot it up and give it a bash when it dropped, like everyone else did. I must say it’s a darn good effort – but I’m not sure how long it’ll keep kicking.

I need to stress straight away that these fears don’t stem from anything the XDefiant team has done. The game appears – at least to someone putting in two or so hours in every evening – to be well balanced, fast-paced, and a loving send up of many of Ubisoft’s modern franchises. These worries stem entirely from exterior factors: namely the impending release of a new Call of Duty, and the rough industry environment as a whole.

Let’s start with Call of Duty – as that’s the obvious big obstacle to long-lasting success for any fast-paced arcadey FPS right now. It’s no secret that a big AAA release can suck the oxygen out of the room for its competitors. Just look at the slew of otherwise cool games that were swallowed up by the attention maw of Baldur’s Gate 3, Elden Ring, and so on. This effect is felt more keenly when a giant release in the same genre as your game comes out. MMORPGs with a keen and dedicated audience see sharp decreases in playercount when a new expansion for World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy 14 drops. It is a reality of the live service lives that these releases lead.

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