XDefiant Promotional Video Takes Shots at Call of Duty, Overwatch, and Other Popular Shooters

Highlights

• XDefiant, a class-based first-person shooter, quickly gained popularity, attracting 11 million players in a month.
• The game combines various Ubisoft IPs, allowing players to fight for factions from titles like Far Cry 6 and Watch Dogs.
• A promotional video references popular shooters like Call of Duty, Fortnite, and Overwatch, highlighting XDefiant’s unique features.

A brand new promotional video posted on social media for XDefiant is taking some tongue-in-cheek shots at other popular shooters. The video, asking fans why they play XDefiant, is brief and makes references to titles such as Call of Duty, Fortnite, and Overwatch.

Having launched in late May of this year, XDefiant is a class-based first-person shooter that brings together various of Ubisoft’s most popular games. In this time, XDefiant has quickly risen to be one of Ubisoft’s most successful games, attracting a million unique players in record time, and attracting upwards to 11 million players in just over a month. XDefiant is a free-to-play marriage of various IPs, allowing fans of these games to fight in the name of factions from other popular Ubisoft titles such as Far Cry 6 and Watch Dogs. By playing the game and earning rewards, players of XDefiant can unlock these factions and, in turn, make use of their abilities during gameplay.

In a recent promotional video for XDefiant, Ubisoft asks its player base reasons why they play the game, accompanied by a video that cycles through a myriad of reasons suggested by Ubisoft themselves. These reasons are presented at a rapid pace, and many offer up some allures for players, such as fighting for their favorite faction or utilizing the customizable loadouts available in XDefiant. Some of the reasons given by Ubisoft throw subtle references to other popular shooters that have defined the genre over recent years.

New XDefiant Video Makes Reference To Various Successful Modern Shooters

With XDefiant, players can “win more than a chicken dinner,” a clear nod to the infamous phrase “winner winner, chicken dinner” that can be seen upon winning a game of PUBG. Alternatively, gamers will be able to “embrace the call without the duty,” an obvious reference to FPS behemoth Call of Duty. Players can “never feel like you’re being overly watched again,” which offers a subtle jive towards Overwatch. Despite being only 15 seconds, the video is rapid-fire with its editing and offers 100 different reasons for someone to play XDefiant – some serious, some more casual, and many paying homage or throwing subtle shade towards the other shooters that XDefiant now shares the limelight with following its success.

XDefiant suffered from a turbulent start as a consequence of a series of delays that repeatedly pushed its launch back, but it appears to have stuck the landing in being a large success upon launch. Being a free-to-play live-service game, the real test will come after launch, however, but Ubisoft appears to be going strong with XDefiant. Season 1 launched just a few days ago, bringing with it new factions, maps, balance changes, and game modes. Ubisoft has been paying attention to fans of XDefiant, taking in their feedback where appropriate, so it doesn’t look like the game shows any signs of slowing down.