XDefiant won’t be making its hopeful “late March” release date, Ubisoft confirmed today.
In a new post on social media, the game’s development team said the “community-first” game still has “some improvements that we need to test” before it’s ready to launch, marking yet another delay in the new FPS title.
Ubisoft said it’s “finishing preparation for a 12-hour server test session that will be worldwide” on all platforms “to stress our servers and get critical data to prepare us for launch.”
XDefiant was originally meant to launch in the summer of 2023 but missed that date due to several ongoing development issues, like problems with the in-game party system and netcode. It appears that netcode is still on the docket for fixes as the server test is meant to help with that.
“This is where we need your help to test our servers as much as possible,” Ubisoft said. “As always, feedback on your experience is important to us.”
After the test, the company said it expects to be able to “lock a launch date and start sharing more about the exciting content XDefiant has to offer in the future,” but little else was revealed at the time this article was published.
At the time it was posted, the new Twitter/X post resided underneath the game’s previous pinned tweet, which was its last confirmation of a delay from Oct. 9, 2023. The game has not had a public playtest since June 2023.
Yesterday, a report citing unnamed sources claimed that development of the FPS has been tumultuous, led by a “Boys Club” of leadership and “toxic culture” behind the scenes, which has reportedly helped lead to the game’s multiple delays.
Ubisoft did not give a new time frame for the game’s release or a date for the stress test.
