You may have seen some chatter on social media over the past few days about upcoming Ubisoft free-to-play shooter XDefiant, and that's because it's hosting a playtest for "insiders" this week across all platforms.
Ahead of the playtest, Ubisoft San Francisco Executive Producer Mark Rubin had some interesting comments to share about what players can expect from XDefiant in general, pointing out that it can't compete when it comes to things like budget and production value, so the team is simply "trying to make a game that is just focused on being fun". Here's exactly what he had to say on Twitter:
"Honest take. XDefiant is being made by a small team inside Ubisoft and we don't have the big money that another FPS in this space has or the number of people and an engine that has been making that game for 20 years.
We won't beat them at production value but we are here trying to make a game that is just focused on being fun. We want to make a game that loves our community and that our community loves. We want to listen and be transparent about what we are doing and what we can do."
Rubin also pointed out that the intention is to make the gameplay feel like some older Call of Duty titles.
Sounds good, then, but what exactly is XDefiant? Well, it's described as a "free-to-play, fast-paced arena shooter that combines intense gunplay with personalized loadouts and specialized factions, as teams of gunfighters battle for domination". We've already seen footage of it before - you can check out six minutes of gameplay up above.
Sign ups for the XDefiant playtest this weekend are still open on the Ubisoft website but there's no guarantee you'll get an invite at this late stage - your best bet is to try and use a social media post where the account is giving away access, such as the two tweets you see below. There are more posts like this out there if you need them!