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Needs more “shared experience”…
Hold up! Don’t like reading? Watch instead…
XDefiant is going to be releasing soon and the beta left a lot of people — including myself — impressed.
But after playing for 2 days straight, I got the feeling that shelf-life is going to be a problem if the developers can’t give us more meat.
If you haven’t seen XDefiant’s Year One Roadmap, it’s impressive — especially compared to the competition’s.
We’re getting 12 new weapons. I can’t wait to see how they balance those. Hopefully, they can avoid the Call of Duty “meta” problem.
We’re getting 12 new maps. How refreshing is that? The maps they have are bright, colorful, and play well. I can’t wait to see what else they have in store.
And we’re getting 4 new factions. I’m not a huge fan of the hero shooter stuff, but the beta has shown they know how to balance special powers with fundamental gunplay.
The Year 1 Roadmap is loaded with content and you can tell they aren’t trying to stretch out 2 seasons over 4 to compensate for shortcomings.
There’s a huge longevity problem, though.
Like we’re seeing with Call of Duty right now, “content” can’t save a game. If the gameplay is fundamentally scuffed then expect an early grave.
XDefiant needs to solve this huge problem or it’s not going to last long.
Currently, the game is a mile wide and only an inch deep.
Maps, guns, and operators are great, but after playing the beta I can see how it’s all going to get stale real quick — there’s not much substance to the fundamental gameplay.
Running around and shooting feels great but those are the basics.
And using “hero powers” is not my cup of tea but that’s fluff.
XDefiant is shallow. It needs a tiered kill reward system like Call of Duty. It needs something like Killstreaks.
The executive producer hinted at not wanting Killstreaks but understands the issue of giving the game more depth.
They need to give us something that affects the global game state — passive abilities or weak gadgets won’t work.
Killstreaks aren’t just for getting kills. They make the battlefield feel more dynamic and populated. And that’s something that was missing in the XDefiant beta — a feeling of intimacy between you and the opposition.
After the 20th match, it was all so one note. It became a game of running around as a solo player moving from one isolated fight to another. There was no shared experience.
By the way, Call of Duty-style kill cams also give you another opportunity to emotionally connect with other players in the match.
Battlefield has a different style of kill-cam and it’s one of the reasons its gunplay will never touch CoD’s — there’s a lack of intimacy.
XDefiant currently has Battlefield-style kill cams. It needs to quickly adopt Call of Duty’s.
Conclusion
XDefiant has a lot going for it and I don’t want to see it shut down in a couple of years.
The developers have some work to do, adding depth to the gameplay.
The best part of XDefiant isn’t the game though, it’s the executive producer who’s listening to the community. Let’s hope it pays off.
See you in the game and as always, stay cool gentlemen.
