XDefiant has been on the radar of first-person shooter fans for several months now. It’s Ubisoft’s latest attempt at breaking into the space, and by all accounts, it’s a remarkably successful one. Through closed beta stages – and most recently an open beta phase – players have been getting hands-on with XDefiant, including some of the best Call of Duty players in the world. But following recent comments, Mark Rubin, Ubisoft’s Executive Producer for XDefiant, had something to admit.

On a post on Twitter, one content creator stressed that he ‘wished people wouldn’t refer to XDefiant as the COD killer.’ By way of a response, Rubin said quite clearly beneath this post: ‘Me too.’ For the longest time, the line of thinking has been that XDefiant is rising up as a complete competitor to Call of Duty’s fame, but it seems that Ubisoft is intent on making its own thing and not honestly challenging what is already in place.

XDefiant is XDefiant

Image Credit: Ubisoft

With rapid pacing, super-slick movement, and a balanced time-to-kill across most weapons, XDefiant is already ticking boxes for many players. It’s especially hitting the right spot for gamers that were left disappointed by Modern Warfare II and Warzone 2.0’s ‘slowdown’. It has been built with competition in mind, and the top Call of Duty players in the world have spoken out about how enriching an experience it is to play the game.

There could certainly be room in the world of esports for an XDefiant competitive ecosystem, and the game is being built to accommodate just that.

On June 23rd, Mark Rubin was very active on Twitter, posting first the ‘Me too’ comment, and then dropping into another thread to offer his opinions on in-game killstreaks. He stated the following:

There are plenty of Call of Duty clones out there, and it seems that Ubisoft is well aware of the need to be the differentiator.

Why is XDefiant Different?

XDefiant offers up an intriguing base concept. It’s not a country vs. country setup, which is commonly seen across almost every other competitive shooter: Rainbow Six, Call of Duty, Battlefield, and so on. It’s a mash-up of Ubisoft’s franchises, with the likes of WatchDogs’ Ded-Sec, Splinter Cells’ Mercs and Spies, Ghost Recon’s soldiers, and so on, all co-existing as factions in the same space.

Given that shooters have been Ubisoft’s bread and butter for decades, it becomes wildly obvious that there’s no small limit to how many franchises the developers can pull from for XDefiant.

XDefiant can be considered ‘different’ simply because of how reactive and responsive the developers have been so far. If there’s a problem, they fix it, and if there’s a top-notch suggestion made, it’ll be implemented or investigated at the very least. It’s already fast and offers up high-octane entertainment for the millions of players that have already gotten involved with it, but that kind of developer involvement is seldom seen these days.

Could we be making space for the first major XDefiant tournament in the near future? It’s expected to release in full later this summer.