PSA: Don’t forget to manually start your XDefiant GSK challenge

There’s plenty to discover in XDefiant season one, but above all, players are looking to try out the GSK faction. While some will undoubtedly buy the faction outright, you can unlock it for free—as long as you manually activate its Major Challenge.

There are two ways to unlock the GSK faction in XDefiant: Purchasing it outright for 1,000 XCoins (about $10 USD) or by completing the GSK Major Challenge and earning 700,000 XP. Eager players have already jumped straight into XDefiant to unlock the new faction but completely bypassed hitting the activate button, meaning some spent hours earning XP that didn’t actually count toward that lofty 700,000 XP requirement.

“This is horrible: New casual players (99 percent of the player base) are going to play tens, maybe hundreds of matches without realizing they’re making zero progress towards the new faction,” one player said in a July 2 Reddit post on the topic. Others were frustrated they couldn’t simultaneously complete the GSK and DedSec challenges and unlock factions together—they’re made to pick instead.

To activate the GSK Major Challenge, hit the Factions tab from the main menu and then select GSK. Then, hit Earn via Major Challenge and select Activate. Earning any XP in XDefiant will contribute to the goal, so play games, hit the objective, land kills, and support teammates to get the most out of every lobby.

It took me a couple of hours to earn 100,000 XP, so expect the challenge to take a couple of days to a week depending on how much you play.

Ubisoft really should have opened this new season with a custom menu showcasing the new XDefiant faction and the option to activate the Major Challenge from the beginning so players didn’t waste their time and matches. It took me a couple of games before I even realized my challenge wasn’t active, and by then I’d completed a daily challenge for a bunch of XP that could have gone to unlocking GSK. Let’s hope Ubisoft learns from this season one slip-up and gives players a little more notice next time.