Fans of the upcoming Ubisoft FPS XDefiant discovered a glitch on Ubisoft Connect today that supposedly revealed the title’s official release date—but it turns out it was nothing more than a false rumor.
A supposed Sunday, Oct. 1 release date was displaying on the XDefiant Public Test Session screen, according to an XDefiant creator who posted a screenshot of the Ubisoft window to Twitter on Sept. 26. The test session window had only just been posted by Ubisoft, with the PC version not even actually rolled out just yet.
While the date shown was tied to the public test and not the main game, many immediately speculated Ubisoft had accidentally revealed the title’s launch date. Ubisoft was quick to quell this rumor, however.
“This is a typo in [the] Public Test session release date,” Ubisoft quality control project lead Andrii Mostovyi said in response to the original leak, confirming the date had “nothing to do with the game.”
Mostovyi went on to add Ubisoft cannot wait to get XDefiant in players’ hands and that fans will be given plenty of notice once it’s ready to go. Nevertheless, it’s a little deflating after the excitement of Ubisoft’s announcement to run the short test on Sept. 28.
Many were hoping Ubisoft was ready to release XDefiant after months of near-silence about the title’s development. Ubisoft executive producer Mark Rubin shared an update on Sept. 21, expressing his disappointment over the team’s failure to release the game in the summer 2023 window they had given themselves.
“I’m personally very sorry we didn’t hit the window we had wanted,” Rubin said on Twitter, stating the team was aggressive in their expectations and that XDefiant was only just reaching the final submission phase and ironing out the last of its major issues.
A summer release would have been ideal for XDefiant, but as the end of the year approaches, Ubisoft will be unveiling its completed project around the launch of some hefty competitors. Valve’s CS2 test beta is reportedly just days away, while XDefiant’s major competitor Call of Duty has lined up its release of Modern Warfare 3 (2023) for Nov. 10.
Combined with the myriad of releases in the past month plus plenty more across October, XDefiant will be slotting in between major releases, undoubtedly impacting the game’s reach. At the same time, further delays may see the already impatient playerbase lose interest entirely.
Here’s hoping Ubisoft’s six-hour test run on Sept. 28 keeps gamers sated until launch.
