It turns out that to create a fun shooter, you had to look back into the past.

• Despite an eventful debut, Ubisoft’s new shooter points the way

• Its gameplay reminds us a lot of the Call of Duty of yesteryear, and that’s good news.

I remember the summer of 2010 with great warmth. I was about 16 years old at the time, and I remember drinking Coke for breakfast and binging Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 with my brother all morning. I remember the UMP45 with a silencer, the “Command” perk, quick shots without the possibility with Intervention in Highrise and Rust… Without a doubt, good times that I managed to return to after playing xDefiant, the new shooter from Ubisoft.

And it turns out that making a fun shooter was as “easy” as making what has historically worked. Although a better start would not be bad at all, what Ubisoft has in its hands looks brutal, such as the button.

Rich debut. Ubisoft’s new game has been in development for a while now and should have been released a long time ago, but by the way, it was just yesterday, May 21st, that it was released on next-gen and PC. However, the launch was marred by servers that were unable to accommodate all players, causing queues, matchmaking errors and frustration. And I speak first hand: I waited weeks for yesterday and ended up reading four volumes of Naruto. Not too bad, but I would have preferred to take a few shots.

Everything is better today. Ubisoft has confirmed that they are working on fixing the servers, and this morning, just before writing this, I was able to log in and play my first games. Well, not the first time, I was able to play the beta at the time and I liked “xDefiant”. It’s been a lot smoother today than it was back then and the servers are up to par, but of course on a Wednesday at 9:00 there probably won’t be as many people connected. Let’s see what happens this afternoon.

Boom, boom, bang, bang. As for the game, I liked xDefiant. I play shooters and MMOs, two of my favorite genres, and when it came to shooters, I was helpless for a long time. I don’t like Battle Royale, the recent Call of Duty bores me SBMM, Battlefield 2042 bores me after 400 hours (oh god…), and Endgame is hard to play. one (while my friends don’t like shooting games). I wanted something more arcade-y, more “take a gun, beat me up on a three-lane map, die, respawn, kill, die, respawn, level up and repeat.”

Do you know what games gave me this back then? Old Call of Duty, especially my big obsessions: Modern Warfare 1, Modern Warfare 2 and Modern Warfare 3.

And now “xDefiant”.

Like at home. The truth is that the gameplay feels really familiar. In fact, if you remove active skills and Ultis (ultimate faction attacks), “xDefiant” could sneak into “Call of Duty” with complete peace of mind. It is clear that Mark Rubin, who was an executive producer at Infinity Ward until 2015, is behind the game. And in this sense, it delivers what it promises: simple three-lane or linear cards (depending on the game mode) with one or more lines. two heights and several modes designed to keep players moving.

In fact, I think not having a Team Duel mode as such is a good idea. The closest thing is the Drawing mode, which will be somewhat similar to Verified Victim. This disturbs players champion and stimulates movement. The rest are modes such as Domain, Occupation, Escort (reminiscent of Surveillance) and Zone Control.

The combat is fast-paced, with more than acceptable kill times and quick respawns. You play all the time and spend almost no time “watching” death, just enough time to change classes or factions. The gunplay and gun feel are fantastic, and while there is recoil, it’s not as pronounced as in other games, and at least with a mouse it’s very easy to control. This is a game with a clear arcade vocation, and it shows in everything from shooting to mobility.

Factions and abilities. Based on other Ubisoft games, factions are essentially active and passive abilities. For example, the Freedom faction heals itself and others, the Ghosts faction has more health and shield, and the Echelon faction is secretive. Each faction has a passive ability, two active abilities to choose from, and a final attack that charges as the game progresses. I have a lot of doctors, but not here, not in any game.

Do they matter? Yes and no. Ideally, there would be some balance and there would be one that does more damage, another that heals, a third that covers… The reality is that shooters are crazy, and it’s not strange that every game has a good handful of healers, so they are the only ones who heal.

Likewise, it can be frustrating to have six characters with shields because it slows everything down a lot. Either way, at the end of the day, this is a shooter, and what really decides the game is how you know how to shoot, move, and position yourself. The rest is mostly help.

Otherwise – free “CoD”. Apart from the factions, everything else is reminiscent of good old Call of Duty. The maps I played were very cool, easy to remember, and a bit of a mousetrap: come in, have a good time, have a good time, and leave. Leveling up makes sense because the more you use a weapon, the more you level it up, the more items you get, and the more you can customize it; and everything related to the battle pass is cosmetic in nature. For my part, I don’t need skins to play.

But what I liked most is that it doesn’t have SBMM.. In short, SBMM (Skill-Based Machtmaking) is designed to match players with other players of their level, but the reality is that once you have a couple of good games in a row, it starts matching you with Mercenaries and Power Rangers. and all Super Saiyans. This causes you to start losing a lot and then being paired up with Pocoyo, Dora the Explorer and Magikarp, making for uneven gameplay. That’s exactly what’s happening in the latest version of CoD, and it’s not without its critics.

Well, xDefiant doesn’t have it, at least not in casual games. In competitive situations, yes, but there his presence makes sense. Casual games match you by ping, region, input device, and platform, and this results in a variety of games: some better, some worse, but all balanced.

During my games, I played with people who didn’t even know where they were, whose team had a couple of excellent players who handled the sniper, which was a pleasure. This is the experience I was looking for and this is what xDefiant was able to give me.

Of the recent shooters I played, Ubisoft’s new game was the only one that reminded me of what, in my opinion, is the Golden Age of shooters. If anyone has played Call of Duty: Black Ops, this feels like a true sequel.

Progress is somewhat slow. Adding to the downside, aside from what happened with the servers, it seems to me that progress is quite slow. The first levels are quick, but I felt like gaining experience and unlocking accessories took a little longer than necessary. It’s good that everything can be solved easily; you don’t have to get a master’s degree to open a peephole.

Performance. I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t have the slightest problem with FPS or stuttering. My computer consists of a Ryzen 5 3600, 32 GB DDR4 RAM @ 3200 MHz and NVIDIA RTX 4070. Thanks to this, I was able to game in ultra mode with a stable frame rate of over 100 frames per second. In “high” quality the performance was even better and the difference was almost negligible. On a fairly normal computer there should be no problem increasing the frame rate to 60 FPS by adjusting certain parameters. In the video above you can find some gameplay (not my best game…) in ultra mode so you can see what it looks like.

In short: yes. On my own behalf, I want to say that the latest news from Ubisoft has convinced me in many ways. Not only did I enjoy it as a video game, but I was also somewhat encouraged that the experience was so similar to the games I remember so fondly. Honestly, I’m looking forward to seeing how Ubisoft continues this way and how far it grows. The plans are ambitious: a season every three months with a new faction, three maps, three weapons… This is no small feat.

Anyway, Ubisoft has something cool. Not a “CoD Killer” because that’s what happens to Call of Duty like it does to World of Warcraft: only CoD can end CoD, but it has all the ingredients for its shooter to take hold in the genre. this occurs during low hours and requires news.

Images | Hataka

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