How XDefiant Failed...

[@xItachii]

I don’t get why xDefiant “a game for old-school CoD fans” went for cartoonish corny heroes and abilities

[@EtherealBias]

For me, that was the biggest turnoff as a player. I genuinely thought the game was fundamentally good, but i just felt like I was playing BO4 instead of OG MW2. So eventually i put more and more time into other games instead.

[@ezequielsarcos207]

@@EtherealBias Agreed. Xdefiants timing is just bad. There is a lot of games out there to play other than a Cod Clone. Safe to say I'd rather play Helldivers 2 and Black Myth Wukong than XD. Just too much variety out there for me to play a Cod Clone.

[@protonaccount2811]

I think they tried to have their cake and eat it too. They'd like to boast that they're going to be the classic tactical shooter to bring in fans that miss OG MW/MW2 which would differentiate them from the crowd. At the same time COD/Overwatch/Valorant/Fortnite are the games with all the money no matter how much the internet complains that they're tired of that stuff. So they end up trying to mimic some of the qualities of those games but not too much, settling for a boring middle ground, and not fully committing to any personality.

[@MrNabeel10]

I had exactly same feel of the game

[@xItachii]

@@protonaccount2811 yeah I think the game suffered most from an identity crisis

[@filippospezaros5876]

xdefiant just lacked self identity , I mean it was just a collab of ubisoft ips which was fun , but got boring after a while. The fact that their entire marketing campaign was solely based around not having sbmm was also nice , for the first month at least until other problems started to show. It's a shame its closing though because I remember being actually hyped for this game

[@Nitroh-]

They had identity with using Ubisoft IPs for the operators which I thought was fine and a cool idea, but what sucked was the concept of the game itself. Instead of just making it a multiplayer shooter, with the idea of the operators they would have benefited making a single player campaign and tie in all their franchisees together with a story, but nope.

[@ChromaPrisma]

The problem with XDefiant imo isn’t that ppl overhyped the game. The problem is Ubisoft did not market the game really at all and it offered nothing new. If it released during the life cycle of MWII shortly after the betas, which I think that was their best window of opportunity, I think it’d be a different story. The games selling point was “no SBMM”, which on paper sounded good but in reality the game felt no different much like any other FPS and it unfortunately was doomed from the start. You can’t have your beta sessions then drop the game a full year and a half later on a whim. The competition was deep and with the game being F2P, it already is difficult enough to maintain. On top of it, the game had no voice chat or typing to the enemy team so there goes any chance of it being social, no S&D at launch and no Private Matches at launch. Also, this is Ubisoft we’re talking about here so actually thinking they’d release this “revolutionary” shooter game is being way too generous given their track record with their games and how awfully inconsistent they are anymore. In the end, I loved XDefiant and I played it religiously even as much as I play cod and it saddens me to see this game go. All the potential in the world yet it was squandered. I really hope Marvel Rivals doesn’t eventually meet the same fate

[@toptiertech7291]

No. The problem is overhype and poor release. They called it “old school cod” but it had abilities. They made a huge deal of no sbmm but the average gamer loves it. Not everyone wants to play a game where they get it in lobbies with KZbinrs and twitch players. Some people aren’t that good but still want to play a game without getting utterly destroyed. They made a game for the 1% of people who complain on twitter and KZbin about sbmm. And those people usually still play cod

[@ChromaPrisma]

@ to a point I agree. Also, the selling point being no SBMM wasn’t a wise choice because all the cod casuals who thought they were good hopped on XDefiant and still got slammed then they just quit and went back to cod. They really weren’t even good enough to complain about SBMM to begin with because that system was designed for them. They thought they’d have it easy elsewhere. But like I also said, Ubisoft was horrible at even marketing the game to begin with. Competing with Call of Duty you’re already fighting a losing battle and we’ve seen many example of games like that which folded so this doesn’t really surprise me. The so called “CoD Killer” ended up killed go figure.

[@toptiertech7291]

@ think about what you just said. You just said it’s a GOOD thing that this game pushed casuals away. How is pushing casuals away in large numbers good for a free game. You just explained why SBMM is good

[@Rockstarrclarke]

Blame Truth was last seen having a mental break down at his local Walmart. No one has seen him since.

[@fanmademunkvideosofficial]

Over a game I highly doubt it Probably have a life

[@LanceTheManipulor]

​@@fanmademunkvideosofficialit's called a meme

[@Skywalkre]

Dude hard glazed this game, said it would kill call of duty in the long run, and denied the rumors to the end. Made stuff up that "CAlLL 0F DuTyy fanboys" are unable to accept the game. Ultimately it failed, and now he's no where to be seen.

[@Rockstarrclarke]

True he did. A lot of people were in denial of the games failure. People were attacking me cause stated how I heard there were less than 20,000 players across all platforms. Which ended up being true.

[@leana339]

And jbowen is hugging his Mark Rubin Bodypillow while crying himself to sleep.

[@TecraX2]

It's easy to boost "We have NO SBMM" when your Playerbase is so small that ANY form of matchmaking seems to take an eternity...

[@michaeljones2162]

I got into Xdef lobbies faster than cod.

[@michaelespeland]

The thing is that no SBMM scared away all the players who thought they were good. They got shit on so hard, while they were used to doing good in a lower skill bracket. Its all a big lie, and when this got exposed, people fled like wild dogs

[@toptiertech7291]

@michaelespeland no SBMM actively pushes away casual players. The people who play 60-90 minutes a day every couple days. The players who are just average. There’s no reason they should be in lobbies with KZbinrs and TTV people who play for a living. Not everyone wants to be the greatest at a game. Some people just want to log on and play a couple matches with their friends

[@michaelespeland]

@@toptiertech7291 I will NOT be punished for making some real effort into these games, just because these money hungry morons are catering to the casual audience. Its such a backwards, gatekeeping view on things

[@indomynusrex126]

​@@toptiertech7291 And even then SBMM harms the players progression and fun in many ways! Go check some vids on the topic... SBMM is just there to make ppl stick to the game, so they are more likely to buy the ingame bullshit

[@skull_mask-guy]

It's pretty funny how games like XDefiant were hyped to be "the next CoD killer" only for them to flop

[@W3T_M3lons69]

@@skull_mask-guy the only game that can kill cod is cod themselves

[@cobbygamer17]

⁠I find it kinda crazy how a $70 game with terrible servers, zero optimization, horrible performance, some of the worst maps, and bad developers who gaslight the community gets more players than free games like XDefiant and The Finals. I get that COD has been around for a long time, but the game genuinely isn’t that good anymore

[@reygamerz8041]

@@cobbygamer17it bc it a Ubisoft game so it a curse to be a flop or very generic game

[@cobbygamer17]

@@reygamerz8041 True

[@cobbygamer17]

@@reygamerz8041 if Ubisoft gave it more love or it was owned by a different company, it probably would’ve been a lot better and more successful

[@deathaero9149]

As a CoD fan, I'm sad that this game is going away. It's immature when people celebrate that this game is leaving next year. Having other FPS' alongside CoD is great for Variety. It's fun to compare these lower tier FPS games to CoD. What these games have that CoD didn't have and vice versa Now since this game is going away, i think The Finals and other FPS' currently out might see a spike in players now and in the future when the game goes offline R.I.P XDefiant. You had some problems that took some time to fix, but overall it was a pretty fun game. I salute you.

[@graham5990]

I enjoy playing both games and don't understand the us vs them mentality. Competition makes game devs work harder to ensure people play their game over another. Competition is great for the customer. This game was so much fun.

[@ariaz16]

Ive never played it but I agree cod really needs some kind of competitor. Obviously the closest would be battlefield but games like this could have over time become something. This would be the only way COD would be forced to up its errors and quality, player retention as one of its focus which is not so existent nowadays

[@graham5990]

@@ariaz16 Exactly. Guaranteed if Battlefield or XDefiant or whatever FPS comes out that really gave COD a run for its money in sales we would stop getting buggy messes at release and would get a great product all the time. We get garbage right now because the devs know people will buy it because it's our only option so they don't need to make sure wee get a great product.

[@YsIii-g7p]

Blah blah blah

[@2pacisAkiltheMC]

This game had one problem: Ubisoft!💯🤷🏾‍♂️

[@cinemapigeon4898]

Best shooter I played since Black Ops 4 in 2018. The maps were great, the gunplay was great, I loved the Escort mode, and I really wanted this game to succeed.

[@BLGamesyt]

i will miss xdefiant, one of best games i played its was a mix from new cods and old ones, but the lack for me was not a lot of content

[@shanieub40]

You absolutely spot on. Two slow to release content. We waited 90 days before season one was released and when it did we got two or three guns one map and one faction. This content was old within a week. For me it was just moving so slow.

[@SeanEP666]

I’m never giving Ubisoft a cent ever again

[@SlavicUnionGaming]

wow you spent money on this game, you should've known a game like this wasn't worth spending money on

[@SeanEP666]

@ thanks genius

[@This-is-a-commentt]

Imagine giving Ubisoft money in 2024

[@RebirthRavenIX]

😂

[@SeanEP666]

@@This-is-a-commentt XDefiant was a good game and was worthy of giving money to. If you didn't like the game it's because you're trash and should git gud. w/ peace and love

[@ObsidianCDL]

The thing is xdefiant was supposed to be a division fps shooter not like a cod game but it got changed halfway through development, that’s why there is a lot of division maps and gun models are from the division

[@twoboss7377]

Blametruth will find a way to blame Cod for this when the game did it to itself

[@mannyballs5751]

he already did

[@crimemafiafamily4352]

Right

[@silashurd3597]

The players are already doing that😑

[@LiveTUNA]

It actually is the COD fans fault, kind of. Xdefiant wasn't supposed to release until mid 2025. But because randomly Ubisoft made devs do an early open beta, your brought a ton of unexpected hype. Keep in mind the first open beta wasn't scheduled until February of 2025, but because MWII was doing so bad, Ubisoft higher ups saw the opportunity to gather a bit of steam for Xdefiant by doing an open beta during that time. I signed on to do 6 play tests from 2020 until 2025, roughly 1 every year with a the final play test in January of 2025 and the open beta in February of 2025 with a release of June or July 2025. The surprise open beta not only screwed our NDA and brought so much pressure on the teams working on the game, but it also attracted a ton of COD fans who were used to playing the beta only a few weeks before release. Thus, they grew very irritable thinking that the game was only weeks away from release once the played the open beta that technically released 2 year too early according to our schedule. Then of course because the hype started to die, there was a ton of negative press and pressure because the game wasn't being released and even people like INKSHLASHER INCORRECTLY saying that the game released way too late, Ubisoft issued an unexpected release an entire year early. They should have never done that early open beta because that's truly what went wrong.

[@deathgrinderb3284]

the game just released no content. free to play games has to have multi events going.

[@crackboi8689]

Blametruth is definitely crying

[@lonleybeer]

Not really watch his recent video

[@rcpolygons]

Yesssss

[@crackboi8689]

@@lonleybeerI’d rather not give him my view

[@mako8091]

I stopped giving a fuck about him. Guy just constantly cries about the same dead horse. It's never coming back. Move on. I did.

[@panopsata3038]

I watch him just for fun that's all.

[@lukehb]

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the number one reason this game failed on was because it had no SBMM. Fans think they want no SBMM, but it’s just not fun when you’re actually in it. It’s not fun being in uneven matches consistently, especially when you’re the lower skilled player feeding the top ones his KD. You may not like it, but the numbers don’t lie. We now have clear evidence from two sources - XDefiant and Activision’s white paper. People will try to spin it some other way, but it’s clear at this point. SBMM makes games more fun, overall. SBMM leads to more players - and especially more casual and low-skilled players - sticking around longer, and having a better time, even if they will swear up and down that they hate it, and it’s ruining the game. They will complain because a few content creators have made it their number one talking point, and convinced them to vote against their own self-interest. But the numbers don’t lie. They had the chance to play a CoD-like game without SBMM, and they hated it. I love most of your content, especially your stories, but your takes on SBMM, I just don’t agree. When presented with a game that didn’t have SBMM, and even when Activision turned it down, the results were as clear as could be - fans left, and the casuals, the masses, they don’t come back.

[@kadenrettler4812]

I actually liked Xdefiant. I liked the operators (mostly the Splinter Cell operators), I liked the Guns and Gunsmith, I also liked how it would connect the Ubisoft games into one, but it's sad to see a game like Xdefiant getting shut down just like Hyper Scape the Ubisoft Battle Royale.

[@graham5990]

Yeah bro I agree. Loved the game had so much fun playing it. Wish they gave it longer to gain its footing. I never understood the COD fanboys that rooted for it to fail. I enjoy playing both games and don't understand the us vs them mentality. Competition makes game devs work harder to ensure people play their game over another. Competition is great for the customer.

[@exposingthetruth3821]

It was a killer game.

[@michaelespeland]

I'm gonna play it till the end on june 3rd, without a doubt

[@jakepark9783]

“But but” it was supposed be a “cod killer”🤣🤣🥺

[@michaelespeland]

@@jakepark9783 No it wasnt lmao. This came from some of the players, not a single dev ever said this. So stop spewing filth

[@mrjoker7061]

I told everyone crap needed original killstreaks to compete with cod

[@rcpolygons]

The cod killer just got killed

[@captaingreen0406]

Cause of death: ITSELF.

[@glitchingghost7560]

Usually games that are called cod killers end up falling off hard or just get shutdown lol😂

[@EXD-flicxy]

@@glitchingghost7560😂 exactly and people thought that it would work 😂😂😂

[@glitchingghost7560]

@@EXD-flicxy Fr 😂 they just don't be thinking, they hear the words "No sbmm" and they are head over heels for the game absolutely pathetic🤣🤣

[@EXD-flicxy]

@@glitchingghost7560fr 😂😂😂😂😂crazy how it’s still happening

[@danielblassi1029]

This game proved that just because you don’t have SBMM doesn’t mean the game will succeed, this game had all of the ingredients at the start and still fumbled it

[@abhisekghosh407]

The game failed mostly due to 3 things 1 - Poor Netcode, and it never improved consistently with each update, for some it was better for some it was worse 2 - The content was very less compared to games that players are used to, a season lasted 80-90 days but a consistent player could finish it within 2-3 weeks and there were nothing to grind further other than weapon skins 3 - Weapon skin grind was very poor even after many tweaks, it was not aligned with the player base, the grind was not worth it 4 - It was evident with the content updates (especially Halloween event and its rewards) the game was not going anywhere It feels very bad for the people working for the game for so long with a vision and then they lose the job right before Christmas, its more heartbreaking for the employees who lost their jobs than the fans and the players of the entry. I just hope someone somewhere will take lessons from this and will again create something that can challenge Call of duty and then co exist, because competition can only make call of duty bow a little to its playerbase who are forced to play with the downsides of call of duty year in year out along with SBMM

[@Bestow3000]

I quit the game before Season 1 because netcode is bad, but fighting against Bhoppers every single god damn game where people play like their life depends on it is not something I'll stick around for. Took the devs far too long to fix it and by then, I am gone.

[@toptiertech7291]

They get severance packages

[@ChaosUnfold]

3 Simple Reasons: 1. It tried to be a COD killer (Only COD can kill COD) 2. It had too many issues under the sun 3. It was a Ubisoft game

[@willg1088]

Number 1 is no pc and last gen ports

[@jacobxiaolong9104]

As for the 3rd point: XDefiant's shutdown is another addition to the massive amount of screwups Ubisoft has had throughout the entire year, all starting because someone in the company said that "gamers should be comfortable not owning their games so that subscriptions in gaming can take off."

[@grm7338]

I see quite a few ppl saying that only COD can kill COD but I think the only thing keeping it alive are all those hard core fans who buy every game they release, even if they’re shit like mw3. So unless those hardcore fans stop playing, COD will probably never die tbh

[@Regnier575]

Both the devs and Ubisoft absolutely are to blame for this games downfall.

[@nightranger1414]

All Xdefiant was to me was literally just siege and cod combined together

[@reaper420hz]

The game was out less time than the delay lol and nothing changed from the delay

[@YsIii-g7p]

ROTFL 😂

[@guilhermesilveira7770]

I quit the game because of the lack of sbmm, I don't have that much time to play do I'm not a good player, but I like to play shooters and the lack of sbmm meant o was stomped left right and center on every game

[@DemocracyOfficerWood]

I never played xdefiant, because I completely checked out of COD games ever since they started becoming fortnite, and i never felt like playing a call of duty again.

[@nzdivinity8232]

XDefiant - No marketing. - Extremely underwhelming skins, camos in the shop (ie no incentive for users to spend money, which is BAD for a F2P model) - Bad netcode & hitreg, even after like 3yrs in development. - Lack of progression or engaging content (ie dopamine rush). I enjoyed the game personally.. but player retention was too low and I wasn't even able to find a lobby in my region (OCE) if using MnK. I think it could have thrived given enough time.. though I also think the devs took too long to address the core issues.

[@W3T_M3lons69]

This game had so much potential it's a damn shame its being shutdown

[@aidenreed680]

I agree, it had it but ubi fumble it so bad

[@glitchingghost7560]

I think the problem is yall overhyped the game because yall was tired of getting dropped by pros in cod.

[@W3T_M3lons69]

@@glitchingghost7560 I liked the concept of the game it was refreshing it ain't got nothing to do with pros and SBMM on cod

[@glitchingghost7560]

@@W3T_M3lons69 of course, that's the typically excuse everybody says😌 everybody excuse who play that game has something to do with sbmm when it's eomm that should be taking the blame 😌

[@graham5990]

@@glitchingghost7560 What's funny about that is my K/D is COD is higher than my K/D in XDefiant. Both were fun games and I enjoyed both. The us vs them mentality is just childish.

[@joshuadixon01]

Specialists are the reason I couldn’t get into Xdefiant.

[@toptiertech7291]

That killed it for me too. Do they consider BO3 to be “old school cod” 😂

[@moodygurlification]

​@@toptiertech7291it is actually it's a piece of dog shit but it actually is

[@alexpointo6516]

God that menu music from MW2019 is soo good.

[@michaelespeland]

Yeah. The only thing good about that game

[@Kingtinooo]

@@michaelespeland stretch

[@moodygurlification]

​@@Kingtinooo nah war zone was terrible in full of campers the game didn't have any balls seriously really bad campaign don't get me wrong the missions are good it's just the story is bad and I don't even have to say anything about Spec Ops😂

[@NoCopyrightBangers]

releasing without killstreaks, no killcam, and no 1 life mode also killed the game. no progression either

[@ShazzledWolf32]

Snd was added

[@NestorVass]

It was a good vid, but there was one inaccuracy, cod4 had sbmm, although it was way different from now. In fact, the first cod with sbmm is cod 2 for ranked on pc

[@diang1984]

The Dopamine. Best quote on the vid. I was playing Bloodstrike on tablet with controller. There is crossplatform with mobile and PC. The BR is resurgence actually. The game as overal mechanics is a straight 8/10. Hero Shooter, Custom Loadout, Small learning curve, perfect balance on weapons but no Dopamine in the final 1v1.

[@BabyBoomAJ1337]

The critical issue here is the timing and the missed opportunity to secure a long-term player base. If they had launched the game during the period when players were bored with MWII and MWIII (at launch), they might have had a chance. But instead, they delayed it for a year, and the launch didn’t even include much content. Meanwhile, Sledgehammer has been showcasing their ability to keep the player experience fresh every week with MWIII. They’ve even outdone IW’s handling of II. With BO6 launching, that window of opportunity is completely gone. I doubt they can justify the costs of keeping XDefiant alive anymore.

[@toptiertech7291]

No long term playerbase can exist without sbmm for a new game today

[@ScapeHunter]

Blametruth will be saying this "Call of Duty did this"

[@captaingreen0406]

But then soon he’ll realize that X Defiant did this too itself. But I know he’ll refuse to believe that and still try to blame cod.

[@rjh9919]

@@captaingreen0406no he won’t blametruth is dense as bricks

[@captaingreen0406]

⁠​⁠@@rjh9919agree

[@captaingreen0406]

@@rjh9919 yup agree. That’s why i chose to never watch his channel.

[@rjh9919]

@@captaingreen0406same

[@DarknessessB11]

Xdefiant was just boring. It felt soulless. On top of tgat the gunplay and movement is very clunky.

[@THE_REDACTOR_BRAVO_0-1]

Well it seems that it didn't "defy the odds" against Call Of Duty remember when everyone was calling it the call of duty "killer" and yes i understand that almost every FPS that looks call of duty gets that title but no surprise there ,it failed. i feel bad for the people like @Prime Pete that now XDefiant is gone and are gonna have to find a new game. I barely played the game because at first it felt like a breath of fresh air but then it got stale for me it felt like any other FPS just with special abilities and it was slow.

[@iporush1667]

you have to produce something innovative in the multiplayer space. but this porblem will also make a comeback to for single player games

[@qedx]

No one wants to play a shooter without SBMM

[@toptiertech7291]

Except the sweats who want to be KZbinrs so play 10 hours a day

[@taylorbolton349]

Was this the dr disrespect game?

[@johndigregorio8609]

The hype in the beginning was crazy then with all the delays etc well the hype was gone then mw3 happened and then it was game over

[@Rockstarrclarke]

It was a bo4 clone. It was a good game, fun and even better than some cod games. It’s sad - the game only lasted a year. Technically not even 4 months.

[@Meyhem33]

I started playing on launch day and still playing, just finished a 3 hour session. We've been begging them to give us stuff to buy since May...but there just never was. They rotated 6 things every few days and those things were rotating. They kept telling us shopnstuff was coming...but it never did. They finally just started putting actually really good stuff to buy...but it was too little too late. Losing this game is devasting. I dont care what anyone says, it felt like old school CoD...and that's what I've wanted since BO3.

[@TecraX2]

Mark Rubin & Co never stopped trying to directly compete with COD, just as recently as with this weekend's COD 2XP Event... The very Millisecond that COD ended its 2XP Event, so did XDefiant!

[@toptiertech7291]

And that hurt it. Bad. Instead of drawing in players who like what you created, they tried to draw in players who just were upset at cod

[@sandro9734]

Why I stop playing XDefiant is mostly because of that dog shit Ubisoft connect launcher I like my games on steam and steam only

[@manslaughter_012]

Wow, this is very unexpected since the game did excellent for the first couple of days of the Beta.

[@DeathSpread]

One of the few times where I'll agree with "(BLANK [XDefiant]) didn't die: it was murdered"

[@Anonymoususer1930]

2:02 80k is not gonna cut it in a place like San Francisco. Try more like 180k

[@DeonKing214]

Game modes is what ruined it for me. It was the same ol shit. No new modes or mechanics to separate it from COD. Why play A knock off COD when I can just play COD?

[@reeseatkinson5796]

With Xdefiant I just couldn’t get comfortable with controls, sensitivity, deadzones. Something was just off and it really turned me off the game

[@Brisaloooooo]

YOU NEEDED KILLSTREAKS IN THIS GAME

[@byroncole6149]

That's why you had ultimate abilities for each faction genius

[@Brisaloooooo]

@ not the same as killstreaks, the abilities were something you were going to receive no matter how you did, it didn’t even reward you for playing good and didn’t have any excitement

[@CoreRealm]

​@@byroncole6149in cod's term, they're equivalent to field upgrades and/or operator skill. Which is not even as rewarding as killstreak.

[@byroncole6149]

@@CoreRealm okay this isn't cod

[@byroncole6149]

@Brisaloooooo you do. Your reward is leveling up, unlocking camos, and different factions. Also i don't understand how people see the level rewarding system is slow. If you drop 30 kills or above in 1 game, you go up like 5 to 6 gun levels per game.

[@wistolla]

Call of Duty kittes dont want to play other shooters like cod hense why it failed and many other clones

[@Kouryuu524]

As an old school COD player who has only liked MW2019 since BO2 the problem with XDefiant was that it wasn't old school enough. Remember the old school CODs had a very fast time to kill (closer to MW19 than any other modern ones). This game just felt like moden COD without sbmm and hero abilities instead of kill streaks, and that is not what old school COD players want. We want a faster ttk, no advancesld/omni/ass slide movement, and to stack streaks to the sky. If you give people that that is all the dopamine hit they need usually. In short this didn't fail because it was too much like old COD. This failed because it wasn't enough like old COD.

[@toptiertech7291]

Correct. It’s weird they marketed as “old school cod” when it plays like a worse BO3,

[@Jovarminator]

Honestly it failed cause it really only catered to the top 5% of players with the lack of SBMM. The whole point of SBMM is to keep the other 95% of players engaged and playing. Which only happens when the top 5% are kept in their own lane

[@Jovarminator]

Everything else was just icing on top to killing it. With the lack of ability to secure the casual players and the fact ubisoft is headed to either filling bankruptcy as their stock is at an all time low they just don't have the capital to put into the game to make the correction necessary long term

[@toptiertech7291]

THIS. That’s what people don’t get. The only people I see complaining online about sbmm are KZbinrs and other creators. They play all day and want clips against less skilled people. That’s who this game catered to. Then when casuals tried it and got slammed by super try hards. Super sweats say they hate SBMM but it’s because they have to play people like themselves 😂 they’ll say they just want to relax and play then sweat on casuals

[@riisky2411]

The problem is that they did innovate. The fps community has been yelling exactly what they want for YEARS! an arcade shooter that is what cod used to be. No abilities no cringey characters. Boots on the ground no SBMM nameless characters. They could make pubg like characters and sell us clothes n shit like pubg. That’s what would kill cod

[@toptiertech7291]

No it wouldn’t 😂😂 you live in echo chambers. 90% of players love and need sbmm. Without sbmm 80% of people get mudstomped every game and they’ll leave. No one enjoys doing poorly at a game because 1-2 people in the lobby are so much better than everyone else

[@riisky2411]

@ yes it would. Everyone would rather have the best connection over SBMM. Just shitters like you rather SBMM even tho it doesn’t work cuz it’s so easily abused

[@Wolftron-k3e]

Yeah, I freaking love xdefiant this is just so sad. It didn’t even get a chance to see a third season this game had strong potential and it can still have potential

[@iskoconquers]

TLDR Its Ubisofts Big fooking fault

[@CoreRealm]

And its everyones fault for even believing in ubisoft, but luckily almost most of us knew ubisoft's bullshit

[@stefaniverson2739]

Trash cosmetics is why it failed. If nobody wants to buy any micro transactions in a ftp it’s doomed. The only good skin I saw was a direct rip off of a Prowler skin in Apex lol. The thing is I thought the game wash trash, but I still wanted it to succeed because that might actually make COD start sweating and having to up their game. Competition is good

[@toptiertech7291]

The problem with this game is that it was marketed toward people who hate bundle. They wanted “old school call of duty players”. They got them. Those players HATE bundles and battle pass. They built a model around a demographic who hates what they are offering

[@Michaelanderson1985]

The wow ability was supposed to be Call of Duty in the Ubisoft universe where you get to play with (The Division, Splinter Cell, Ghost recon etc) which was supposed to be the coolest thing. Problem is those IPs don't hold as much weight as Ubisoft thought. Everyone loves Splinter cell (In theory) Everyone loves ghost recon (In theory) just not enough to support a game based around them

[@GodZ7Venom]

I always thought this game was a bad clone of shatterline

[@Nitroh-]

Shatterline was a Bo4 clone, which Bo4 was Overwatch in a Cod package anyway.

[@Imagine_Trying]

Small correction. MW2 and COD4 had SBMM. Every COD after COD3 had SBMM. Some people just don't think it did because it wasn't quite as anemic. But it had it.

[@MarioKaiba]

Ubisoft killed their own "CoD Killer". Between the whole "Gamers need to get used to not owning their games" debacle, Skull & Bones, and the whole fiasco with AC Shadows it was going to be doomed from the start. If it could've released during MWII's lifecycle during the Nick Mercs drama, it would've succeeded as the "CoD Killer" it was meant to be. But sadly as you said, it came out during MWIII's peak and with BO6 just around the corner. Not to mention that there was the net code among other issues.

[@toptiertech7291]

No it wouldn’t have ever succeeded without sbmm. That’s the key. That’s why cod has so many casuals. Back in the day everyone was a casual so it wasn’t needed. But now everyone and their mom have “TTV” and “YT” in their gamer tag

[@MarioKaiba]

@@toptiertech7291 I didn't mention SBMM at all. Look, SBMM was FAR from what halted it's potential. Ubisoft's antics and drama ruined their brand. And of course the game not releasing during MWII's lowest point. If it released back then, it would've had a stronger following long before Ubisoft decided to insult gamers.

[@toptiertech7291]

@ the game was already released early. They couldn’t release it a year sooner

[@rjh9919]

Maybe Blametruth should’ve made xdefiant videos if he loved it so much but instead he stays with cod for his check lmao

[@DEFALT_HORROR]

He said so many times he won't play new cods yet he does 🙄 If he likes other games so much he should go there

[@ezequielsarcos207]

Exactly my Thoughts. He made Max 3-4 videos on Xdefiant and then just went back to Cod because the views were lowering. I used to love these Cod rant commentators (BT,fooly,Gilmour) but at the end of the day that's JUST what they are. They will say the game is trash but are the first ones to Pre-order it. I despise MP in these new Cods and haven't bought a Cod in 4 years but these people can't shut up about it

[@toptiertech7291]

Every XDefiant KZbinr did that. NerosCinema moved on from cod he said. XDefiant was the future. For a couple weeks. Then BO6 dropped. Not he’s prestige master in 6 weeks after release 😂 literally every KZbinr complains about sbmm but has no issue playing cod all day

[@ezequielsarcos207]

@@toptiertech7291 These Cod "Haters" hate until the game launches and in less than a month they have mastery camos. These "Haters" are the same people you hate to play against. The thing with these KZbinrs is that they lose credibility. They spout their hate the whole year but then buy and sweat in the game. It just makes them look like hypocrites.

[@ferarribrown5752]

Jumpers killed it lol

[@sk84lyfe1211]

My favorite fps since BO4. I’ll play til June then I’m out of the multiplayer fps game. I’ve got a backlog I partially put on hold when XDefiant came out that I will now get back to whenever I play any video games after June.

[@McFlufferson]

No strict SBMM is definitely the worst flaw of a F2P competitive shooter. I've got friends who casually enjoys CoD, who tried XDefiant, did a few games, got crushed harder than they ever will on CoD and uninstalled the game. The casual gamers are the one who pays for double xp and stuff like that. They are the one who don't finish their battle pass and have to buy a new one with real money every season. They are also the one you push out of your game without strict SBMM.

[@michaelespeland]

Dont try to defend that malicious, dishonest system. People really got pillowed to think they were good, went over to XDefiant and got crushed. Did they try to improve? No, thats too much work in a world where the average attention span is 10 seconds. They went back to the safe shooter that is COD, back into their safe skill bracket, without even realizing why.

[@McFlufferson]

@@michaelespeland I'm not defending it, I'm just pointing out things. I don't take position over it. I like ranked game modes, where you are put against players around your rank, with a healthy dose of variation between lower and higher skilled players, like R6 Siege. You see your rank as you progress, and you do progress and feel it. You also progress while playing with higher skilled player than you because you need to communicate (not like CoD). And as you say "Did they try to improve? No, thats too much work". Yes they did quit. That's too much "work". They are here to play. I'm not saying strict SSBM is good or bad. That you should put it in place or not. I'm saying doing a new IP, free to play won't work without it. Is there a way to do a shooter without strict SSBM today ? I don't know, but my best guess would be yes, through crowdfunding. If you can ensure that there are enough people putting money where their mouth is, to cover developpment and maintenance cost, you could probably pull it off.

[@michaelespeland]

@@McFlufferson Well, at least youre giving an argument that doesnt sound like complete lack of braincells.

[@toptiertech7291]

@michaelespeland no one thought they were good. People know they are casuals. I have a friend who has a 0.8 KD in cod. He knows he isn’t great but he doesn’t get destroyed enough to quit. He would in XDefiant

[@abrahambenkhiaron7444]

Hi Inkslaher I was wondering if you have done a video on cod black ops 6 Also Thank you bro for all the good stuff you upload Really enjoy your videos 👍👍😎😎

[@angelchiquito6365]

How I feel is the abusive love and hate relationship with COD has genuinely burnt me out when it come to FPS muliplayer shooters.. im just getting to damn old for these new shooters nowadays. I dont have time to grind a boring unispired battle pass. The asthesitics of the game wasn't all that cool. Just felt the game had no identity to separate it self from other arena shooters. It was fun for first few weeks i madly respect no sbmm but i rather play immersive tactical shooters nowadays.. i mean shit i barely play BO6.

[@jacobxiaolong9104]

Nerdslayer’s writing the script for a Death of a Game episode for XDefiant as i speak.

[@usadroopymeat1099]

I am sick and tired of games with so much potential to be reduced to nothing have you heard of the SOCOM franchise the franchise was a huge massive big deal franchise until idiot and brain rotted people destroyed it because they called it a cod clone when cod was made in 2003 when SOCOM was made in 2001 once I or someone ether way become a freelance writer one day I would resurrect not only SOCOM and Xdefunct but every single defunct game franchise from 2000 era

[@G3M1N1K1D716]

I played it for like an hour and all it did was make me want to play cod it felt like great value cod.

[@crazyspartan23x26]

I like you inkslasher but I feel like a lot of y'all cod content ambassadors were hoping for Xdefiant to fail.

[@ivanmartinez743]

Hope doesn't make games fail, but rather low numbers and no interest from the public. People are all years non stop saying COD is dead, but the numbers and interest from people tell another story. XDefiant failed because it was a big meh

[@promeym2587]

Bullet sponges. And the fact that this game could also have also been called, "XDefiant: Spider-bot Ops." Its failure is not complicated.

[@lovemym16]

I loved XDEFIANT, the game played well, minus the net code issues that happened every so often. It could of had much better items in the shop and used the iconic ubisoft characters instead of generic faction characters. Who wouldn't play as Sam Fisher or team rainbow.

[@TVChannel350]

XDefiant: Taking operators from all of Ubisoft’s IPs instead of being its own game with unique operators, maybe a campaign, multiple modes, weapons, etc…

[@kompst_tu]

I think the biggest issue is that XDefiant seemed to not take itself seriously. It didn't have it's own identity. It was heavily influenced by Overwatch, like a LOT, from the music to the heros and abilities. During its life cycle, abilities continued to be an issue that was complained about, but the devs chose to double down on it, even at one point buffing one of the most agregious abilities and trying to take away the ability to counter it. Granted, they ended up reversing the change and reintroduced the spider vulnerability bug as a feature, but at that point everyone already knew what the game was going to be like going forward. I loved the tie ins, but I feel like any seriousness the game had was in its tie-ins from other games that took themselves seriously, and even once brought into the game, the seriousness was lost on the whole "hero-shooter" thing, and it didn't help that every single character had a corny line to say when deploying their ability. but perhaps one of the worst offences in my opinion was just how much effort you had to put into taking a single enemy out. I like longer TTKs but not this much. The TTK was just too long. I knew something was wrong because the TTK said 200 in-game so I booted bo4 up with a custom game where I set my enemy health to 200, and found it was much much quicker. Also that awful metal sound when you hit players. Ugh.

[@aguynamedguabbah]

I love the backround music ink 🔥 should use it more often on your videos but slightly lower volume a bit

[@MahdiMadbox]

I think "multiplayer" is boring.

[@Luna-cn4pj]

I think one thing messed up x defiant was that I released when mw3 2023 was out which had good movement good progression with weekly cameos and stuff but if x released in 2022 or when vanguard was out could’ve had potential to get some loyal players find itself in the fps genre

[@dom2flyy314]

This is Heaven for Ink and Hell for Blametruth

[@crazy_juice67]

you are absolutely right💯

[@Slimjim2147]

I played xdefiant for about 2 weeks. First couple games were fun, but it got stale quick. The weapon progression was too slow and there was nothing else to do. I also always found xdefiant kinda clunky, the animations all around just felt off to me

[@kodycooksey4483]

Take a drink every time you hear skill based matchmaking 5:15

[@NOTMASTERPRIME]

This game had potential and passionate developers. Unfortunately it came out of Ubisoft. Not only they had a bad test lunch they also had bad marketing if the game wasn't a Ubisoft connect exclusive it would been a bit better, not better because it's still a Ubisoft game. In the end it was fighting against Call Of Duty and it always ends bad for the competitor. What a disappointment.

[@phelix_3816]

This is sad. Xdefiant was a game I always went back to whenever I was on PC next to H2M, Plutonium MW3, BO1 and BO2. Hell I installed MWR on PS5 and just hit Prestige 1. The game definitely gave a me vibe that kept me coming back

[@DeadFishFactory]

The game is fine for what it is, but in this day and age, that's not a winning formula for making a _live service_ out of. This type of game that doesn't innovate or do anything better than its direct competitor would simply just have a niche following of ~1000 concurrent players, not the 20k+ concurrent they would have wanted. We already have a free-to-play CoD-lite game with Ironsight, and I like that game way more than XDefiant even if XDefiant is more polished, because at least when it wanted the oldskool CoD feel, they actually committed to that rather than XDefiant that tried to be fancy with hero shooter mechanics like BO4.

[@sunnnnn55]

4:45 i can agree, i think only 5% of the player base plays enough to care about SBMM

[@SouSporting]

BTW the reason the game was delayed for one entire year was because, and they said this, the game failed to pass the standards for launch on consoles so imagine the state it was in at the time...

[@JamesRussoMillas]

Back to The Finals

[@Alfred8Aguilera]

lmfao, I can still remember, clear as day, when Patty P said this would be the "CoD killer" 💀

[@terable3536]

good analysis bro

[@thomasandersondrums2260]

*Laughs in Black Ops 6*

[@ck3plays]

Such a shame as it had potential. Maybe not a COD killer but a solid competitive contender. But Ink, I agree. For me they missed their window to launch when MW2 was down at its lowest moment but by then, MW3 had resolved most issues and brought back remastered maps. But they also didn’t offer anything special or different. The one thing I didn’t care for in this game was the specialists. Reminded me of Black Ops 4 had already did something similar. The gun progression system was way too long and slow. The matchmaking felt long and slow. But this also shows how much marketing and hype from content creators and streamers helps. I’m sure there’s several creators who receive special gifts from Activision that are basically paid in somehow to hype things up. xDefiant seemed to just go head in. Welp. Onto something else.

[@ShadoDiablosXD]

The writing was on the wall, but xdefiant glazers cant seem to read.

[@Davey_066-vu7eg]

I think this is funny now, last video we were having BlameTruth on there talking about how clinically insane he is about COD, with the gameplay of almost every video of his for quite awhile I feel has been XDefiant. And now were letting people know how sad of a game his main pile of gaming sadness is

[@brandonfreeman5614]

I was telling them from the start that there was no dopamine effect in the game. It is a good game and the only thing I had was camo grinding. But instead of giving us easier camos they made it to where people had 2-300 hours later before they were close. Once it became seemingly unreachable is when I left. Hoping to come back the next season but here we are. Gameplay wise I enjoyed as much and sometimes more than cod…..it just wasn’t rewarding enough.

[@CJPLAYS215]

Its a shame I been grinding zombies on bo6 waiting for the next battle pass

[@justinnguyen3918]

The reason it only worked for about a year is because it was the year of MWIII. Because MWIII was so bad, people saw this as a better alternative. With BO6 released, there’s no longer a need for an alternative, so now all the players that left MWIII for XDefiant are now going back to CoD for BO6

[@toptiertech7291]

You got it backwards. This game was announced during MW2 when cod fans were very upset. MW3 made people feel a little better but this game came out around the time BO6 was being announced. This game looked so old by comparison

[@jacobxiaolong9104]

AFAIK, XDefiant was revealed back around 2020-ish, when this game had a different artstyle compared to the XDefiant we had.

[@moodygurlification]

​@@toptiertech7291Something that both of you are forgetting is that people really love to DMZ make the majority of the community loved that game mode and not to mention Modern Warfare 3 is perfect multiplayer because let's be honest the multiplayer was actually really great and then when Black Ops 6 came out which has been absolutely beautiful from campaign to multiplayer to zombies it basically just murders X defiant but anyone with common sense could have saw this coming from a mile away

[@LurnWell]

It didn't even have time to fail. They already admitted that they never marketed or promoted the game in the last update, but they planned to. Most likely, Ubisoft already knew they were going to close studios, so they were hoping it could get an Apex Legends (made by other former COD devs)reaction to make some quick profit. You still would have to properly advertise a product to see that through. Apex is a rare occurrence. It was a cash grab to attempt to make up for the company's mishandling of funds. Unfortunately, this just proves how the problem is at the very top, not the developers.

[@CarlosColon-m7i]

Y’all let Ubisoft clout your judgment the cod killer ended up killing itself.