XDefiant starts very strong with record-shattering player numbers

There are many metrics that publishers and developers use to grade the success of a game launch, and if the speed at which the player base beats a communal challenge is one of them, XDefiant couldn’t have asked for a better start.

With the larger matchmaking and server issues from launch day now seemingly passed, Ubisoft put out a community challenge through Ubisoft Connect tasking XDefiant players to deal a collective 25 million points of weapon damage. Within just a matter of hours, players didn’t just beat that milestone, they shattered it.

Earlier today, Ubisoft posted a screenshot on the XDefiant Twitter account showing that the community had scored over 3.3 billion points of weapon damage, roughly 132 times the amount that was asked for. But even that screenshot way undersells the amount of damage done. At time of writing, which is about 3pm CT on May 23, that number has more than doubled, eclipsing 8.3 billion points of damage while still climbing.

Numbers don’t lie, and there are other numbers that the XDefiant devs are likely pretty happy about. At time of writing, XDefiant has the seventh most concurrent viewers on Twitch of any game, outpacing big names like Fortnite, Minecraft, and even its primary contender Call of Duty. Some of the biggest names in Call of Duty competition and content like Scump, Octane, and TeePee are boosting these numbers, as is the drops/rewards system. Earlier today, Insider Gaming reported that XDefiant reached one million unique players in less than three hours after launch, the fastest ever for a Ubisoft title.

Given how long XDefiant took to come out, and considering who it was going up against in the likes of Call of Duty, the early signs seem all positive.