Ubisoft call XDefiant “fast-paced fire fights meets punk rock mosh pit.” Sure enough, there’s a lot of FPSing in the midst of giant graffiti walls down here in the reveal trailer. XDefiant is borrowing more than the Clancy name for its new game, Ubisoft explain. The four classes they’ve revealed are also pulled from other Clancy games. The tank-style Wolves hail from Ghost Recon, the assault-type Cleaners and support class Outcasts from The Division, and the healer class Echelon from Splinter Cell. Within each class are different characters, called Defiants. You can spot a lot of different gadgets and abilities up there in the reveal trailer—from deployable shields to invisibility to turrets. XDefiant will let you mix any faction with any weapon loadout and change both at respawn if you choose to. They’ll continue adding Defiants over time as well, Ubisoft say. Later on in the developer interview part of the reveal livestream, executive producer Mak Rubin says “we want this game to last for years.” At the moment though, it’s still in early development, they say, without mentioning a release date. In the meantime, XDefiant’s first closed beta test starts August 5th (for US and Canada only, sorry), which you can sign up for on Ubisoft’s site. For the beta test, Ubisoft say they’ll have ten of the game’s maps available and five game modes. Domination, Ringleader, and Upload will be played on arena maps while Escort and Zone Control will be on linear maps. I’m looking forward to an unknown number of years trying my very best not to call it Tom Clancy’s XDivision.
