Since its launch in May of this year, XDefiant impressed in several ways. Not only is it a fun, well-designed arcade shooter, it seemed to have got off to a good start with its community, responding to feedback and keeping lines of communication open. Recently, however, the community sentiment has turned for the worse, with a souring of feeling among fans. With this coinciding with the game’s Twitch viewers plummeting, it looks like XDefiant is beginning to struggle.
If we go back a month or so, XDefiant was making all the right sounds and its players – while not entirely happy with every decision and gameplay feature – were willing to lend it the benefit of the doubt. That goodwill has since dried up, with fans noting that significant, gameplay-affecting issues are still going unaddressed and communication has dried up to a trickle. With a new patch on the horizon and a potential second season coming at some point, some fans are wondering if it’s too little, too late for the FPS game.
While it’s not possible to get direct information about player numbers, one indication of a game’s health is how popular it is on Twitch. At launch XDefiant hit a peak of 203,586 viewers, a truly staggering number that beats nearly everything else on the platform other than the Just Chatting category and Counter-Strike. Since then it’s shrunk considerably and at the time of writing it’s sitting at 2,492 people watching the game – which puts it below titles like Enter the Matrix, The Simpsons Hit & Run, and Heroes of the Storm. It’s still not a terrible number of viewers and of course those initial numbers are unsustainable, but it does indicate a shrinking of interest in the game.
In terms of player sentiment on the other hand, things are looking far more grim. Obviously Reddit is never a bastion of joy and happiness but it’s fair to say the game’s official subreddit has turned on the title. Just a casual look at the popular threads shows how little positivity there is about the game right now – posts titled “I gave this game a chance but I’m done” and “I don’t blame anyone for dropping this game” are gaining considerable traction, with few players stepping in to counter the negativity.
The reasons for this souring are many, but one of the biggest issues repeatedly raised by players relates to how the game performs in terms of being an online shooter. There seems to be a disconnect between what the player experiences and what the code of the game registers, with hits being disregarded despite appearing to land, and bullets appearing to zoom around corners to hit players firmly in cover.
Even the news that a patch will be landing soon has done little to stir fans of the title. One highly upvoted comment by reddit user u/figneritout_ reads “So we’re 1.5 months into ranked, and the third patch still delivers none of the promised ranked changes that also somehow dodged last patch? Also no commentary on net code or desync. It feels like the devs have given up – these are all minor tweaks amongst a game with major issues.”
That feeling pervades the entire comment section, with little light for the game’s developer to latch on to. It’s yet to be seen if a big course correction is coming or even possible at this time, and of course this may all be end-of-season malaise setting in, but right now it’s hard to deny that XDefiant appears to be showing signs of struggle.
Should you however want to dive into the game for yourself, our guide to the best XDefiant loadouts and the best XDefiant weapons will soon see you dealing death with the best of them.
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