Battle royales dominate the first-person shooter genre, so some fans expect XDefiant to bite the bullet and follow the rest of the herd.
In 2017, H1Z1 sparked what would become a meteoric rise in battle royale popularity. Fortnite eventually took over that mantle, and then other studios entered the fray and put their unique spin on the genre to varying degrees of success. Seven years later, there is still a demand for more innovations to the tried-and-true formula, including calls for XDefiant to join in.
Will XDefiant have a battle royale mode?
In a tweet on February 2, 2023, the XDefiant executive producer Mark Rubin seemed opposed the idea of adding a battle royale game mode to the title.
“We are solely focused on making a great and fun arena shooter. No BR. And we’re not moving on to a new game after this. We are going to keep making this game better and better! That is all.”
Ubisoft has a troubled history with battle royale projects. In August 2020, the publisher launched its first free-to-play battle royale title Hyper Scape. Ultimately, the title fell short of expectations and shut down in April 2022. That didn’t stop Ubisoft from returning to the well, as there were allegedly at least a dozen battle royale games at various points of development at some point. It’s unclear what happened to any of those projects, and it remains to be seen if Ubisoft has any plans to create another battle royale.
Yet when the new 6v6 arcade shooter XDefiant emerged, fans inevitably asked if this was Ubisoft potentially dipping its toe back into the battle royale genre. Albeit with the help of several supporting studios, Call of Duty proved that it’s possible to create a 6v6 and battle royale experience under the same umbrella. The framework is there for Ubisoft to replicate, but for now, we currently just have XDefiant.
