From the video:
I’m genuinely sad the XDefiant Open Beta is over, I haven’t had this much fun jumping into a new online shooter in a long time. I didn’t take a lot of clips while I was playing because honestly, I didn’t expect to like it this much, but I’ll have some clips to show you as well as some of the official footage.
But I wanted to go over a few of my first impressions after playing a few hours of the open beta this week. I knew this game was going to play a lot like Call of Duty, what I wasn’t ready for is how much they drew from Overwatch, and I’m not talking about Overwatch 2 and the heavy monetization crap.
I’m talking about the escort the package thing and having special abilities and an ultimate. It was really cool to see those elements in a Call of Duty-style game. But obviously Call of Duty is the true source of inspiration here and I feel like they did a really good job of trying to recapture a little bit of the magic that Activision has been sort of ignoring these days.
What It does well
It’s tightly focused on 6v6, the maps are well-balanced, and the lack of skill-based matchmaking really shined through. It was a really cool part of the whole experience. I got wrecked in one match and then in the very next one I reeled off like 33 kills. It was awesome. And the maps were really cool. They had that kind of zany feel to them that reminded me of like the DLC packs to the Call of Duty games back in the glory days where you’d get like this strange zoo or a theme park or something like that.
There were a lot of kind of cool, colorful maps in this. And as I said, they’re well balanced, I mean, they had great lanes. They had good action going on through them. I was just really, really impressed with the map design in the game.
It’s cross-platform. I tried it on both a PlayStation 5 and an Xbox Series S and my loadouts and stats carried over without a hitch between the two, so that was seamless, even in the open beta.
What Worries Me
It’ll be free to play on all platforms and that’s really the one thing that concerns me. I mean, if it’s going to be free to play, then how obnoxious are those microtransactions going to be? I don’t think they’ve given all the details on that yet.
They claim it’ll always be free to play and never pay to win but I don’t know, man. I guess I’ll just believe that when I see it. Everybody’s got numbers to hit.
I have seen some complaints about hit boxes and aiming for over long distances and accuracy and stuff like that. And I think part of that is going to be some wrinkles that they iron out as they go past the open beta phase.
But then another part of that is I just think the aim assist is not as strong in this game. And I do think that’s by design. And I do think a lot of people are going to be happy with that, especially if you’re playing on a PC.
The Big Question
Is it a Call of Duty killer? I mean, just based on an open beta and a few hours of playing, I’d say, no, I don’t think Activision sweating in their seats or anything. But I do think there will be a sizable number of Call of Duty players who miss the old movement style or miss the skill based matchmaking as it existed ten years ago versus how it is today.
I think there will be a lot of people who enjoy playing this game. I don’t know if that’s going to even put a dent in Call of Duty, but it doesn’t matter. If this game can be successful then I’m all for more choice. They haven’t announced a specific release date, just sometime this summer on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series and PC, and I’m really looking forward to it.
I can’t wait to jump back into these games. So, yeah, that’s it. Just a quick impression. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time, probably 3 to 4 hours in the beta, but I had a blast with it and I feel like there’s a lot of potential here.
