Ubisoft's upcoming free-to-play shooter XDefiant went through multiple rounds of testing earlier this year, and the full release is somewhat imminent on Xbox Series X and S. However, the team has recently run into some certification issues with Sony and Microsoft, which has ultimately delayed the full launch.
As a result of the uncertainty surrounding when this game is actually coming out, studio head Mark Rubin has spoken openly about failing certification in a brand-new blog post. Here's what he had to say about the process so far:
"At the end of July, we started this process, and we got our first results back by mid-August which was a Not Pass. We realized then that we had more work related to compliance than we had anticipated. If it HAD passed, then we would have been able to ship at the end of Aug. But it didn’t and so we have spent the last 3-4 weeks fixing those issues and getting ready to do another submission."
Rubin then went on to give his best estimate of a full release window, although the team is still dependent on XDefiant passing its next certification attempt.
"We are currently in the CM prep part of that process and will hopefully be submitting to 1st parties in a little less than 2 weeks. If that Passes cleanly, then we could be looking at a mid-to-end of September release. There is however a likely scenario where we get a conditional Pass meaning we have to do a Day 1 patch with some final fixes to ensure compliance. If we do need to do a Day 1 patch, then that pushes our date out to early/mid-October."
Clearly, this is an evolving situation over at the XDefiant studio, and the game's full launch still seems very up in the air at the time of writing. Still, the team is being very open about the process, so we should get an update on progress in the coming days and weeks.
The full post breaks down the certification process and what it means for a game to fail it, so if you're interested in the nitty gritty details there, it's well worth a read.