Just look at Apex Legends.īut with context, it’s clear that the success of Apex wasn’t simply a case of “published by EA.” In fact, you could argue that in a market crowded with other battle royale titles, including big names like Fortnite, that Respawn Entertainment was taking a risk (especially when its Titanfall titles weren’t exactly the biggest successes). Surely even a big-name publisher could make a new IP with new characters a success. Granted, they all didn’t have the marketing might of Activision Blizzard or even a Ubisoft behind them. Paladins, Lawbreakers, Battleborn, Rocket Arena, Dirty Bomb, Quake Champions – the list of failures and/or failing titles over the years is pretty significant. Just because a hero shooter like Overwatch was a huge success doesn’t mean that every other imitator fared just as well. It’s important to note a few things though. Surely it should appeal to fans of those franchises! It even has recognizable properties like Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell and The Division. The fact that it’s only coming to Ubisoft Connect and not the Epic Games Store, at least initially, shows that Ubisoft wants full returns on revenue from the outset. It could serve as another strong revenue stream for the company which hasn’t made a huge push into the competitive FPS market outside of Siege. Even Rainbow Six Siege, which mixes tactical shooting with more grounded heroes and abilities, is still popular with over 75 million players as of July 2021.įrom the outset, having a 6v6 shooter with realistic gunplay and abilities but with faster-paced action like Call of Duty isn’t the worst idea (especially if it’s free to play). In its first year, Valorant hit 14 million players and even managed to beat out Valve’s Counter-Strike: GO in revenue earned this past January. In the hero shooter genre, even a game like Overwatch which hasn’t had any huge updates or new heroes in more than a year saw 10 million new players joining in 2020. Immediately, one could argue that an idea like this makes sense. So instead, I’d like to examine the necessity of something like Tom Clancy’s XDefiant. It could very well end up being a fun game, even if it doesn’t seem to break any boundaries or innovate on its own. To be fair, the game hasn’t received a release date and will have a series of closed technical tests first before its full launch. There was those who hated that Splinter Cell and Sam Fisher still hadn’t received a proper sequel while others looked at XDefiant as a cash-grab, attempting to cash in on the hero shooter trend (but leaning closer to Valorant in terms of realistic guns). The initial backlash was against the game’s punk rock, mosh-pit aesthetic with lots of colorful graffiti, particularly in trying to pass it off as fitting for Tom Clancy’s genre of espionage thrillers. How does Echelon fit in, since it was kind of good, then kind of bad and kind of good in the Splinter Cell series? Good question but I digress. As a free-to-play multiplayer title, XDefiant mixes together the “Defiants” – rambunctious factions from other Tom Clancy properties like the Wolves from Ghost Recon Breakpoint and the Cleaners from The Division – into 6v6 matches. You could be forgiven for not remembering it – on the Ubisoft North America channel, it has an overwhelming Dislike ratio of 24,000 to 12,000 Likes. A Ubisoft rep told me that as of this writing, XDefiant will only be on PC via the Ubisoft Connect store.On July 19 th, Ubisoft finally unveiled its next big PvP project, Tom Clancy’s XDefiant. When it does release, XDefiant is coming to both PC and consoles with crossplay support "expected" on day one. Sign up at XDefiant's official site for a chance to play the PC-exclusive test build starting Aug 5. Ubisoft isn't ready to say when XDefiant is releasing widely, but the first playable test will kick off in just a few weeks. This is likely an intentional move to avoid confusion with what are two very different types of FPS, though this is the closest that Ubisoft has come to competing with itself in a while. Despite Rainbow Six Siege's expansive pool of 60 operators and gadgets, the XDefiant reveal makes no mention of it at all. You might have noticed one obvious Clancy faction curiously missing from XDefiant's roster: Rainbow Six. It's unclear exactly how flexible these loadouts will be, but Ubi said each class will have several abilities to choose from. Given that everyone appears to share similar health pools and gun options, the setup seems closer to Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and 4's operators, who could occasionally pull out a super weapon. So it's not quite a hero shooter, but Ubi does plan to expand its roster with more factions (including more Tom Clancy crossovers and "beyond").
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