Insider Gaming believes they know the date for XDefiant’s upcoming Server Test Session.
It’s been a testy series of months between the XDefiant team and Insider Gaming, as the latter reported on alleged workplace issues within the team. Insider Gaming’s source in the team is apparently uncompromised as they move forward with this new report, but there’s one thing.
Insider Gaming also says that even though they can vouch for this information, plans can always change, so Ubisoft could always move that date or timeframe earlier or later. But with that said, here’s their information.
Ubisoft’s plans are to launch the test on April 19, 2024, this coming Friday. Insider Gaming also claims that while Ubisoft initially announced they would run the test for twelve hours, they could keep it live for the whole weekend, dependent on how things turn out.
Lest we forget, the reason there is so much hubbub on XDefiant in the first place is not that Ubisoft claims it will be one of their biggest upcoming titles, or the names attached to the studio, notably Mark Rubin, or the franchises that are part of its crossover.
It’s because the game has had consistent good impressions from influencers and gamers who got to play the game, throughout their closed and open beta tests. While Ubisoft already provides game competition to Activision’s Call of Duty franchise in the live service space, notably on Rainbow Six Siege, the prospect of the often dubbed Call of Duty-killer, to be made by some of the people who made Call of Duty, remains popular among AAA game studios not named Activision.
Of course, Ubisoft is planning carefully on how to move forward with this release. While we know the often quoted axiom that “a delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad,” given the nature of live service games, they do have to decide eventually when XDefiant is good enough to launch.
That launch does not have to be perfect, but it has to have enough things going on that it will hook fans completely. It’s the path to realizing XDefiant’s potential that is Ubisoft’s big concern right now, and it’s definitely not something they can afford to screw up, given the limited success of their recent releases.
That includes costly investments like Skull & Bones, but also big bets that did not pay off, like Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. For those online shooter fans looking for something new, we do hope that XDefiant turns out OK after all.
