XDefiant’s Game Modes Are Getting Abandoned Slowly But Surely; Mark Rubin & Ubisoft Need to Act Now

XDefiant has been out for over two months now. The free-to-play first-person shooter by Ubisoft took the world by storm during its closed beta days, garnering a ton of hype and attention.

When the game launched, it quickly reached over one million players and has since reached over 11 million unique players. However, despite the game’s immediate success, it appears that XDefiant game modes are already being abandoned.

In the extremely competitive free-to-play shooter environment, Ubisoft’s new game is now falling behind.

XDefiant – Already Running Into Problems

The game’s newest map, Daytona, launched a few days ago on August 1, recreating a street racetrack for the linear game modes; Escort and Zone Control.

Ubisoft launched a dedicated XDefiant Daytona Playlist to those who wish to only play the new map and get used to its surroundings. This is normal for free-to-play shooters whenever a new map gets introduced, allowing players to enjoy the new content only.

Is DAYTONA playlist DEAD?
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The Daytona Playlist is already running into trouble as some players are encountering long queue times due to no one migrating to the game mode. Others are having no issue finding games in the playlist, but it’s likely because OP did not specify their matchmaking settings in the post.

They had IBM turned on which stands for Input Based Matchmaking. Even though OP has cross-play enabled, IBM takes priority and will only match them with mouse and keyboard players or controller players depending on what OP is using.

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Even so, XDefiant Daytona is not as popular as Clubhouse, the previous map release. As opposed to a linear game mode, Clubhouse is built for the more popular arena game modes such as Domination and Hot Shot.

XDefiant’s Major Problem To Stay Alive

It’s great for Ubisoft to offer so many game modes and maps for its free-to-play first-person shooter. Now that we’re over two months into the game’s launch, it’s very clear what players are gravitating towards and what the game’s future is if the developers don’t act now.

The arena modes are the most popular for XDefiant. The game modes are simple (Domination, Hot Shot/Kill Confirm, and Occupy) with 12 maps that are open with many buildings and corridors to go through.

Linear game modes are about attacking/defending an objective. Only five maps that follow a more straightforward structure. Not only is the number of maps doubled in arena modes but how fast the games go is another key difference.

The official website states that arena maps are for “intense fast-paced battles” while linear maps are about “[playing] the objective as it progresses toward a destination while your opponents try to stop you in your tracks.”

Players want the fast-paced action and not the slow methodical objective based modes. Daytona is a fantastic addition to the game but if Ubisoft wants the linear game modes to stay alive, change needs to happen to make the action in Escort/Zone Control faster.

What do you think of XDefiant Daytona? Let us know in the comments what you think!