It was recently revealed that XDefiant – the upcoming Ubisoft shooter – hasn’t been given a release date yet because it can’t be given a release date. In a transparent post on the Ubisoft blog, Executive Producer, Mark Rubin, took to the airwaves to explain the situation. It was revealed that XDefiant’s current build has failed compliance testing with Xbox and PlayStation, meaning it can’t be released on those platforms just yet.

Originally, XDefiant was supposed to be released by the end of Summer 2023. That’s more or less here, and we’re still sitting around waiting for the game to be deployed. Millions of people played XDefiant when the beta phases went live, and now they’re hurting for another taste of the fast-paced, balanced shooter that aims to challenge the ‘Call of Duty paradigm’. It seems that there’s a little more waiting still to be done.

XDefiant Defied by First-Party Firms

Image Credit: Ubisoft

In the very honest blog post written by Mark Rubin, we get a crucial insight into the final stages of the development process. It was said that, at this point, it’s all about QA and compliance testing, with a game being put through its paces as rigorously as possible, testing the end-to-end functionality of the platform and attempting to make it as solid a title as possible. Rubin stressed that, despite intense internal testing, the build that was submitted for review by Xbox and PlayStation was kicked back.

‘At the end of July, we started this process, and we got our first results back by mid-August which was a Not Pass. We realized then that we had more work related to compliance than we had anticipated. If it HAD passed, then we would have been able to ship at the end of Aug.’

It was originally stated that XDefiant would be released by the end of Summer 2023, but now that window has been pushed back to early/mid-October. It’s important to bear in mind that there’s still a huge blocker in the form of the submission process to first-party firms, and that could result in yet another kickback. It’s a little knock to the system to realise that XDefiant might have too many bugs to be accepted on these platforms, which doesn’t fill us with excitement about the final product.

Related: More XDefiant Factions Are Leaked

XDefiant Will Deliver – But Not Yet

Rubin wrapped up his wordy blog post by revealing that two new ‘community-led’ features have been integrated into XDefiant. These features include map voting and ‘an S&D-like mode’ – they won’t be around for launch, but they’re now a part of the solid XDefiant roadmap. For the most part, XDefiant has been a community-first product since it burst onto the scene with early access phases.

Related: Is XDefiant Crossplay?

It’s aiming to do things a little differently than Call of Duty, for instance. For the longest time, it has been lined up as the ‘Call of Duty killer‘, even if the likes of Mark Rubin hate that title. It’ll be interesting to see what the final product looks like when the game drops – hopefully in October.