So... good news, I guess? After being a bit of a punchline in that everyone in the press and hobby thought it was dead, Ubisoft announced that XDefiant not only IS NOT DEAD, but it will be releasing on the 21st of this month. After the game went radio silent for years, it's finally coming out in about two weeks. After the game was excoriated for its ridiculous title and multiple delays, it's finally happening.

But hold your horses because this is a Ubisoft online multiplayer shooter. As is usually the case with one of these, the game will launch with only a portion of its promised features and content. As reported by Eurogamer, XDefiant will start with a "preseason" that is planned to last about six weeks or about a month and a half. This preseason will have five factions, fourteen maps, and only five multiplayer modes to choose from when you enter its main campaign. The game will also have a traditional "ranked mode" with your standard array of 4v4 competitive match types. It is also critically important to remind everyone that XDefiant is a free-to-play multiplayer shooter and is most definitely going to have every single F2P trapping seen in Ubisoft's prior F2P multiplayer games.

As much as I want to discount this game, Ubisoft always seems to be the developer to find a way to make these "work." After Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege and Tom Clancy's The Division 2 had less than smooth launches, both secured stable, though toxic, online communities that have kept those games running and active years after their launches. Is this the time when that winning formula breaks? Maybe, but nonetheless, good on them for finally releasing a game.

Ubisoft always seems to be the developer to find a way to make these "work."

Do they, though? How's that ol' Hyper Scape doing these days? You doing a lot of Hyper Scapin'? What about Extractin'? You doing some Extractin' in between all the Hyper Scapin'?

I would imagine Extraction is still technically a going concern but, well, LOOK.

I would say Ubisoft has a mixed record in recent years, and the games you cite belonged to BIG franchises. Also The Division is a different kind of game, more about PVE than PVP and thus more of a Destiny-like.

Am I sure that XDefiant will fail? No. I'm not. Ubisoft has the money to keep it going as long as it wants and sure, it's possible it carves out a niche. But I'd say that it could also very well not last 6 months. And I don't think it's ever going to be at the level of an Apex Legends. Nothing about it looks appealing compared to its competition.

But I'm definitely on team put it out there. It might surprise all of us. Just like Hyper Scape did when it became @zombiepie's favorite game of all time and he considered quitting his work at Giant Bomb to try to make it as a professional Hyper Scapist.

If you have to say "surprise, this thing isn't dead" then double surprise: yes it is.

A surprise in the fact that once a game's been abandoned during development, rarely does it come back into production. But not surprising when it comes to the reason. Call of Duty Modern Warfare III is not doing as good as many predicted it would. Many felt that it's an overall disappointment, as Jeff Gertsmann talks about a lot. Ubisoft assumed they couldn't compete with Activision before, now they realize they can.