XDefiant misses another launch window, Ubisoft says a new release date will be announced after an upcoming stress test, which also doesn't have a launch date

It will probably come as no surprise that Ubisoft's free-to-play XDefiant will not be out by March 31—today is April 1, after all, and it's still not here. In a weekend update on Twitter, Ubisoft acknowledged the game's latest miss but said a brief server stress test is coming, after which a real launch date will finally be announced.

XDefiant was originally supposed to be out in summer 2023, but following a seemingly-successful beta test in April of that year, it was bumped to October 2023 , and then delayed again to an unspecified future date . In its February 2024 financial report , Ubisoft slated XDefiant for launch in the fourth quarter of its 2023-24 fiscal year, which ended March 31.

A week before that date arrived, rumors surfaced that the game would be delayed yet again, and a few days later Ubisoft made it official.

"The game has always been community-first, with player feedback as a top priority," the development team said in the update . "While we hoped to go live by the end of March, there are still some improvements that we need to test before that."

Ubisoft said it's "finishing preparations" for a server stress test that will run for 12 hours on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. "After this short test, we expected to be able to lock a launch date and start sharing more about exciting content XDefiant has to offer in the future!"

It's been a rough haul for XDefiant. Its announcement in July 2021 was met with widespread derision that was strong enough to force it back to the drawing board for a branding overhaul . When it came back for real in April 2023, it seemed competent: "Basically fun," our big shooter guy Morgan Park declared , and "as boots-on-the-ground, 2010-era CoD as it gets outside the Activision bubble."

The real problem XDefiant faces, though, is that it "is a perfectly fine shooter in a time when 'fine' is a bare minimum." It's not hard to imagine that's why Ubisoft has continued working on it beyond its previous deadlines: As a free-to-play game XDefiant could carve out success in a field dominated by $70 Call of Duty games, if Ubisoft can get it right—but it could also just as easily end up the next Hyper Scape , abandoned, forgotten, and very quickly gone.