XDefiant Tech Issues Causing Delay Explained by Dev

While XDefiant had a successful open beta that saw the game feature-complete (for the most part), fans of the game (this writer included) was surprised to see the game get delayed multiple times to the point that now don’t even have a release window to look forward to.

The dev team was communicative in the delays, but never fully explained why the upcoming free-to-play game — which played like it was ready for release — got pushed back so many times and as to why. As it turns out, there are very specific issues concerning the servers and other technical stuff that prevented the game from being shipped in time. This has now been explained by XDefiant Executive Producer Mark Rubin, who goes into a little bit more detail as to what issues they are tackling currently.

This was communicated by Rubin over on Twitter/X, where a fan asked the same questions a lot of players who tried the beta had as well.

Part of it was scale. Under small tests, some stuff worked fine but when you scale up there were compounding issues causing major issues in those systems. Also, some of the netcode issues were due to increased anti-cheat which sadly is always something that hurts performance.

— Mark Rubin (@PixelsofMark) March 24, 2024

Rubin also chimed in on another gamer who mentioned that the game should have been released in October with the dev team adding improvements to the game post-release.

Even if you couldn't party up with friends? Even if the netcode crumbled under scaling from the number of players. Even if you were running around with a bunch of invisible people shooting you. Even if you felt like you were constantly hitching? I don't think so.

— Mark Rubin (@PixelsofMark) March 24, 2024

Continuing with the technical talk, Rubin mentions that if they launched XDefiant without a proper party system and the present netcode they had, the game would be DOA (Dead on Arrival).

…A lot of people would have dropped and not come back. We needed to fix those two things or the game might have been DOA. I loved your beta videos and can't wait to see more!!!

— Mark Rubin (@PixelsofMark) March 23, 2024

With Rubin’s explanation that the netcode is being rebuilt, we now understand why it’s taking so long. And nope, the rumor that it’s due to execs pushing for the game to be more like Call of Duty is not true and has been debunked by Rubin himself.

XDefiant has no release date, but we’re hoping that it’ll be soon. Expect news about it to be available this week, and once we know more, we’ll be sure to let our readers know about it.

More XDefiant Reading on MP1st:

• Ubisoft’s Silence on XDefiant’s Launch Plans Is Doing More Damage Than They Know
• Report: XDefiant Season 1 Info Surfaces From Ubisoft Connect, Mentions Rainbow Six Siege
• XDefiant Has Content Planned for “Many Years to Come,” Devs Weren’t Ready to Launch Game in Original Window

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