XDefiant release date pushed back, setting up potential face-off with Call of Duty

After an impressive beta earlier this year, XDefiant has been largely quiet for the past few months, leaving fans of the FPS wondering when it will be released.

But today, XDefiant executive producer Mark Rubin finally posted a new blog, revealing that the game likely won’t hit its “late summer” release target after running into some issues in the submission process.

“At the end of July, we started this [submission] process, and we got our first results back by mid-August which was a Not Pass,” Rubin said. “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 August. But it didn’t and so we have spent the last three-to-four weeks fixing those issues and getting ready to do another submission.”

Rubin detailed the submission process, explaining there are several steps that need to be taken to ensure the game is ready for release. In short, the company needs to submit a Candidate Master (CM) version of a game to distributors like Ubisoft, Sony, and Microsoft who will then approve or disapprove the game’s state.

“We are currently in the CM prep part of that process and will hopefully be submitting to first parties in a little less than two weeks,” Rubin said. “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 One patch with some final fixes to ensure compliance. If we do need to do a Day One patch, then that pushes our date out to early/mid-October.”

FPS fans likely know what else is in early to mid October: the beta for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. This would set up a potential faceoff between the reigning champion CoD and the upstart XDefiant which clearly looks to be targeting fans of the older CoD games.

The news of no firm release date will likely be disappointing to many, especially those who were dead set on the “late summer” release window. But according to Rubin, it’s necessary.

“If we were following the standard rules for game releases, we would have set a date far enough in advance with enough buffer to have a confident release date,” Rubin said. “However, like a lot of things with this game, we have not chosen the typical route. Having millions of people play your game long before it’s ready is not normal. Not being afraid to show an unfinished game to millions of people with all its flaws is not normal. These were real tests and not just marketing events. So, when it comes to when we will release the real answer is ‘as soon as we can.’ And we will continue to update you with more info when we have it.”

To close the blog, Rubin teased that map voting and a Search and Destroy-like mode are both in the pipeline as additions to the game “based on player requests,” so there’s likely even more to look forward to than players already had in mind.