Ubisoft announces free-to-play shooter Tom Clancy’s XDefiant

Ubisoft has announced Tom Clancy’s XDefiant today, a new free-to-play shooter.

XDefiant looks like something like a cross between Call of Duty and Overwatch. You can pick different classes to play, each with distinct weapons and abilities. One can heal allies, another can deploy a shield, and another has a flamethrower, to give you some examples.

Like in Overwatch and some Call of Duty games, players also have cooldown-based abilities, including ultras. You can also customize your weapons with different attachments.  Matches will pit two teams of six against each other.

We know that Ubisoft has been looking to do more live-service games, even going so far as to take the future of Assassin’s Creed toward this direction.

XDefiant will include characters and references to all of Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy’s franchises. Expect to see Ghost Recon, Division, and Rainbow Six elements. Who knows, maybe we’ll even get a smidge of Splinter Cell content.

The shooter’s first player test will start on August 5.