XDefiant - Ubisoft's F2P budget CoD meets Overwatch.

Looks painfully generic.

Also given the dramatic fall off in players that The Finals saw, I'll be surprised if this has momentum.

Happens to me in Overwatch. They go on about how it should be 50/50 meaning it's a close match and it comes down to individual plays or teamwork, but instead as a solo queue player 50/50 means you're either in a team getting absolutely stomped upon or you're the ones doing the stomping. Going from a K/D of like 1 and 8 to the next game where it's 29 and 1. And in that way, 50/50 means its a coin flip as to what team youre in against the other. Having a close match seems rare and inbetween. It's so ridiculous, can't take it serious.

Anyway, xDefiant is one of those games I already thought was out like 2 years ago so that doesn't bode well.

It is funny how most of the people moaning about SBMM are the really good players/ YouTubers who just want a game where they can fuck over everyone and get made having to play a game against actually skilled people.

This is where Halo did it right like 20 years ago splitting matchmaking off between ranked/social playlists of largely the same gametypes.

+1 for thinking this was out years ago. I was probably thinking of CrossfireX in fairness.

You mean you're not a fan of ZXUprisingX2WarGun-Alpha?

Oh wow, didn't realise The Finals was even on consoles. Sounds like a painful experience given how fast it is.

I mean I remember you saying you thought it was going to be the next big thing and I just didn't see it happening. There's only so much time in the day that people have and I guess it's free and younger people have so much more free time but these things live or die generally by the steady supply of content but also how many streamers are playing it giving it exposure and in both areas it was lacking. In most cases the only left people left playing these games are skilled people and as a new person that's a hard hill to climb.

It's wild how hard it is for online games to find sustainability now. You've got things like The Finals, that previous Ubisoft one which name I forget, the Cliffy B one ages ago, Redfall to some extent, Nightingale recently, etc etc. Some big budgets and the game is dead within a month of release.

Then you've got things like fking Palworld which get millions and millions.

Would not like to be a publisher.

I really liked The Finals. It was the most refreshing shooter I'd played in years. Unfortunately my friends decided to stop playing, as I think they felt it was getting too hard. I don't know if that was after the auto aim change as that didn't particularly bother me.

It's a odd game because it's possible to be absolutely steamrolled (which isn't fun), but it also requires a kind of... reflexive creativity which might not be to everyone's taste either.

Anyway, XDefiant *is* very generic and I think that's a good thing. I can't think of a CoD-style game that's F2P on Xbox and allows you to drop in and not worry too much about how a game goes. I can see XDefiant as a game people download and play with friends as a break from Overwatch, or Fortnite or PvPvE etc. Or even to play solo when they're not in the mood for their other games.

Exactly and that's why something like Palworld was huge. A small team, a smaller budget. There are far too many of these GaaS big budget shooters that just die on their arse because publishers are chasing the trend of what's current at the time of announcement rather than ,you know, making something that's fun.

I just heard it wasn't working. Massive are focusing on Division 3 which is probably the better choice.

There's an irony here in that Palworld is very much a Pokemon clone itself   

There really is room for 2, maybe 3 games in each competitive multiplayer genre that will dominate the space. You're just not gonna compete with Fortnite, Apex or Warzone if you're a battle royale for example.