XDefiant Is Coming Soon, And Factions Are Being Leaked

Most of the FPS community is still of the opinion that XDefiant will be a true competitor to Call of Duty when it releases soon. It certainly looked good when it was performing well in beta tests that pulled in over a million users, and it has a solid foundation that’s backed by Call of Duty pro players. It’s Ubisoft’s stab at the arcade-based first-person shooter arena, and it’s a relatively unique undertaking that fuses elements of the developer and publisher’s ecosystem together.

In XDefiant, the in-game factions are made up of recognisable forces from Ubisoft’s games. That means there are fighters present from the likes of Far Cry, The Division, and Splinter Cell. Recently, some dataminers uncovered more factions coming with the full release of the game, and while they’re mostly obvious, they’re exciting nonetheless. With Ubisoft’s far-reaching array of franchises, there will be plenty of factions that they can dip into to flesh out XDefiant’s roster when the game is released later this year.

What Factions Are Coming to XDefiant?

XDefiant is poised to be the next big competitive shooter and it has fantastic esports potential, but what factions are playable in the game? It can be argued that XDefiant follows Rainbow Six Siege’s formula in that each character from these factions boasts unique abilities and gadgets. It’s a winning formula that has worked for Rainbow Six for several years, and it has already shown promise in XDefiant.

Here are the factions that we’ve already seen in play:

Libertad (Far Cry 6)
Phantoms (Ghost Recon)
Echelon (Splinter Cell)
Cleaners (The Division)
DedSec (Watch Dogs)

But thanks to recent leaks that were posted to Reddit, we’ve got an inside look at some more factions making their way to XDefiant. It’s important to stress that these leaks are unsourced at present, and as they’re from dataminers, they’re obviously subject to change – even if they are dramatically obvious. They’re made up of some of Ubisoft’s most popular and iconic franchises, so it’s almost already written that they’ll exist in XDefiant.

These are the leaked factions:

Brotherhood (Assassin’s Creed)
GSG9 (Rainbow Six)
Wolves (Rainbow Six)
Spetsnaz (Rainbow Six)
Highwaymen (Unconfirmed – potentially Far Cry New Dawn)

Related: How to Play XDefiant Now

Is There Really Any End?

If we look back across the many factions that have made up Ubisoft’s suite of games, we can produce dozens of entities that could make an appearance in XDefiant. From Far Cry to Assassin’s Creed and from Watch Dogs to Rainbow Six, there are countless teams that could be ‘lifted and shifted’ into this all-new shooter with the utmost ease.

We could even see special characters surface – could you imagine charging around one of XDefiant’s many maps as Sam Fisher himself, or as Ezio Auditore? How about hacking the enemy team while playing as Aiden Pearce or gunning them down as Jon Bernthal’s character from Ghost Recon, Cole Walker?

At present, we know that XDefiant will be released in 2023, but we don’t know exactly when.