XDefiant, Ubisoft’s latest free-to-play shooter, is doing really interesting numbers, at least according to what Tom Henderson reported on Insider Gaming. We talk about 1 million unique players in two and a half hours from launch, as reported to Henderson by some sources who naturally wished to remain anonymous. More than 500,000 concurrent players were registered on launch day.
It must be said that the influx of players created some problems accessing the servers, which were fortunately resolved eight to ten hours after launch. Now it seems that the experience is going really smoothly for everyone. These numbers make XDefiant the fastest Ubisoft game ever to reach 1 million unique players. Not bad really.
Has Ubisoft hit the mark?
However, there are also other positive results to report for XDefiant. About two days after launch, unique players exceeded 3 million and currently number approximately 300,000 concurrent players across all platforms.
Honestly, at present it is impossible to talk about success or otherwise, but for comparison, Respawn Entertainment’s Apex Legends accumulated 1 million unique players in eight hours and 2.5 in the space of 24 hours. It launched in 2019 on PS4, Xbox One and PC.
Being a free-to-play XDefiant will not earn anything from access to the game, but for this economic model it is absolutely normal for this to be the case. Having a large number of players means having a large community, therefore more social comparison which coincides with a potential growth in in-game purchases, between Battle Pass and various microtransactions. In particular, the cosmetic items are expensive (we’re talking about 30 dollars for four items), as complained by the first players, complaints which are also a sign of how many would like to buy them if they cost less.
For the rest, the game seems to be in excellent condition, with Ubisoft satisfied with its progress, at least for the launch period. It looks like XDefiant is on its way to surpassing all internal objectives set by the company. It remains to be seen whether it will be able to keep players on the servers or whether it will lose them somehow, which is always the biggest risk for live services.
