XDefiant season one patch notes: GSK, Spiderbot nerf, Libertad buff, and more

XDefiant’s season one is arriving, bringing the Rainbow Six-inspired GSK faction, new weapons, and new maps with it.

The update will also include balancing changes to factions and XP gains, too, so the XDefiant that players have come to know since it launched season zero in late May will be a bit different in the new season.

Here’s everything coming in XDefiant’s season one update, which goes live on July 2 at around 8am CT.

XDefiant Y1S1.0 patch notes: Season one

The main highlight of season one is the new faction, GSK. The faction has really awesome abilities, like electrified barbed wire, a riot shield that can blind your enemies, and a placeable item that will destroy projectiles in its vicinity.

One of the more exciting changes is using a Booster will now only count down time during matches when you’re playing “rather than all the time, like when you’re folding laundry or whatever,” according to Ubisoft.

The battle pass, tested in season zero, will now have a lower XP threshold than before “to give battle pass progression a little more pep.” Bonus XP rewards for MVP and Victory has been halved, however, while completion XP has been doubled to encourage players to finish games.

Balance-wise, there are big changes inbound for Echelon, DedSec, and Libertad factions. Echelon’s Intel Suit cooldown has been increased from 30 to 40 seconds, while DedSec’s Hijack cooldown was reduced from 28 to 20 seconds, and its Spiderbot cooldown was increased from 25 to 40 seconds.

Ubisoft also “adjusted Spiderbot behavior so multiple Spiderbots won’t attempt to hug the same face, nor will Spiderbots continue to ignore faces they’ve hugged multiple recent times,” fixing a big complaint from players, which is Spiderbots in general.

Lastly, Libertad’s BioVida Boost ability cooldown has been reduced from 25 to 20 seconds, and its Medico Supremoe ability has been fixed “so it will no longer disappear after the deploying player respawns as a different faction.”

Season one also adds a Creator Code program, “which allows players to choose a creator to receive commissions from their XCoin purchases at no additional cost.” Players can choose “Support a Creator” in the store to see a list of eligible creators and codes to use.

For the full list of changes, check out the patch notes on Ubisoft’s website.