XDefiant now slated for summer release—if you choose to believe it

Delays have plagued Ubisoft’s Call of Duty rival XDefiant, but there may finally be light at the end of the tunnel. The FPS title is now slated for a summer release—should you choose to believe the game will actually ever come out.

XDefiant was first scheduled to release in the summer of 2023 but missed that window due to issues with the in-game party system, and the need to improve the game’s netcode. It was then penciled in to drop before the end of March 2024, but the developers stated that “some improvements” were still required and that the deadline wouldn’t be met either.

Now, according to XDefiant Alerts on X, formerly Twitter, the game is now looking at “an expected release date of this summer,” should an upcoming test session go well.

The test will take place on Friday, April 19, and will last just 12 hours. Should that go well, the test will be extended until Sunday, with the summer release date set to be confirmed following the end of the session.

Truthfully, even with the test set for this weekend, I’m finding it hard to have any faith that we’ll see the game this summer. It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a year since the last Open Session playtest back in June 2023, and we’re still waiting for an official release date.

It feels like XDefiant has missed its big chance, with the positive release of Modern Warfare 3 hurting the game badly. It’s hard to be excited about a Call of Duty rival if CoD has a good game out.

Between all that, and reports that the development of the game has been hampered by “unnecessary changes” demanded by Ubisoft, it’s hard even to believe we’ll get our hands on the game this year. For Ubisoft’s sake, they’ll need to hope this week’s playtest goes well.