Ubisoft's new free-to-play shooter, XDefiant, has made an impressive debut, attracting over 3 million players. A portion of its 3 million player base is composed of cheaters, apparently, as players have reported various instances of cheating in the game.
XDefiant Plagued with Cheaters Amid Successful Launch
XDefiant Cheaters Promote Themselves on SNS Platforms
- [1] screenshot taken from Reddit
As reported by InsiderGaming, XDefiant reached its first million players just two and a half hours after launching on May 21, setting a record as the fastest Ubisoft game to achieve this milestone. As of May 23, the game had around 300k concurrent players across all platforms, a number that climbed to over 500k despite initial server issues.
XDefiant supports cross-play and cross-progression and draws comparisons to classic, arcade-style shooters like CoD: MW2. Despite its strong start and positive reception, XDefiant is already grappling with a common issue in modern online shooters: cheating. Reports of cheaters using wall hacks and aimbots surfaced on online platforms like Reddit.
One player detailed how their first two matches in the game both had cheaters, saying, "My first two games were lobbies with guys dropping 40 kills and me getting 1 tapped for letteing one pixel of my characters head leave cover. I don't care about sbmm [skill-based matchmaking] but lobbies full of mf's with walls and aimbots will make alot of new players call this game DOA."
- YouTube video on XDefiant cheat (c) Fonsed
XDefiant uses the BattlEye anti-cheat system, which is also used in popular shooter games like Fortnite, Rainbow Six Siege, and Destiny 2. BattlEye detects anomalies on players' systems and automatically sanctions accounts found using cheats. However, with XDefiant being a free-to-play game, it just means banned players can easily create new accounts and be rats on the game again.
"Been playing since release and it's clear that this game is going to be filled with cheaters," another player wrote on Reddit. "A simple google takes me to a bunch of pages showcasing cheats for this game. A couple of days into the game and I just don't see any use playing it."
A site that sells "cheat subscriptions" markets their XDefiant cheat as a "humanized aimbot and advanced ESP that lets you see through walls and predict enemy movements." Apparently this subscription also comes with instant delivery and automatic updates.
Source:
[1] r/XDefiant
Reddit posts [1], [2]
EXCLUSIVE – XDEFIANT HITS 1 MILLION UNIQUE PLAYERS WITHIN 2.5 HOURS OF LAUNCH
