Just in its introductory pre-season, I’ve been absolutely loving XDefiant – there are still a few areas for improvement, but Ubisoft’s free-to-play shooter has been a joy so far. XDefiant Season 1 looks to ramp things up even further on Tuesday, July 2, with three new maps, three new weapons, Capture the Flag mode, and a fresh, Rainbow Six Siege-inspired faction.
During Ubisoft Forward, a first look at XDefiant Season 1’s content was aired alongside trailers for some of its new PS5 games and new Xbox games like Star Wars Outlaws and Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Its moment in the spotlight revealed that GSK would be the newest addition to the lineup of XDefiant classes, which features abilities inspired by Siege operators Bandit, Blitz, and Jager. Like the characters in other factions, it appears that it won’t actually be Bandit, Blitz, and Jager that you’re playing as, but this trio was definitely the source material. We see teasers for a riot shield ultimate ability, something akin to Jager’s Active Defense System which can take out projectiles like grenades, and what could be barbed wire.
The Siege-ness doesn’t stop there – one of the three new XDefiant maps is Clubhouse, an arena that will be familiar to those who play Ubisoft’s other big competitive FPS game. We only saw glimpses of it, so we’re unsure at this stage how much of a copy and paste job this is – it could be a carbon copy of Siege’s map, it could be slightly modified to suit XDefiant’s gameplay, or it could be a totally original design that just borrows Clubhouse’s name and aesthetic. The other two maps are Daytona and Rockefeller. While most content will arrive at launch, the maps will be trickled out over the course of the season at a rate of one per month.
While there was already a heavy Tom Clancy vibe to XDefiant – three of its five launch factions come from the Tom Clancy-titled series of Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, and The Division – Rainbow Six has always felt like a no-brainer. We’re not surprised to see it wheeled out as the free shooting game‘s first post-launch class – especially after it was leaked earlier in the year.
Three new weapons are also arriving and will look to find a spot in your best XDefiant loadouts. The L115 sniper, the Sawed-Off Shotgun, and the LVOA-C assault rifle will all be free to obtain, and will hopefully shake up the XDefiant meta.
On top of all this, Capture the Flag (one of my personal favorites in other shooter series like Call of Duty and Halo) is coming to XDefiant too for Season 1. A little bonus for you when it comes to game modes: XDefiant’s executive producer Mark Rubin also revealed in an interview during IGN Live that Team Deathmatch would be arriving “in a couple of weeks” before the start of Season 1, so you’ve got that to look forward to as well.
More concrete details on Season 1’s content will be revealed in an episode of XDebrief on July 1, just before the new season starts, so keep your eyes peeled for that.
Until then, read up on the Search and Destroy-style mode that is in XDefiant’s pipeline, and check out this leak for an Assassin’s Creed-themed faction that could potentially arrive in a future season.