Ubisoft has unveiled the next Tom Clancy game, XDefiant. (Once again, it’s not Splinter Cell.) As we’d already been able to glean from the snippets of footage that hit social media yesterday, it’s a fast-paced take on FPS games that adds a few doses of colour – and abilities – to the normally drab world of Clancyverse military shooters.
XDefiant is a free-to-play arena shooter with faction-based classes inspired by previous Tom Clancy games. The Wolves will serve as tanks, Cleaners will fill the assault role, Echelon will be supports, and Outcasts will be healers. You can customise your character with traits, abilities, and ultra powers, but the devs say the focus is still on making sure the core shooting action feels good.
A beta is set to begin August 5 on PC. You can sign up on the official site. Ubisoft aims to get XDefiant into the hands of players early for feedback and revision – a reasonable course, given how the company’s last reach into multiplayer games turned out.
Hyper Scape got a decent, but muted, response at launch, and there hasn’t been much in the way of major updates since Season 3 launched back in March. The devs haven’t talked about what the game’s ultimate fate will be, but while Ubisoft is known for big turnarounds on flagging multiplayer games, Hyper Scape currently has about 30 viewers on Twitch. Not much to bounce back with.
Here’s hoping XDefiant meets a better fate. Meanwhile, Ubisoft has delayed a couple of its big upcoming PC games: Rainbow Six Extraction and Riders Republic. The Rainbow Six Extraction release date won’t land until January 2022, while Riders Republic has suffered a smaller delay to October.