XDefiant's Shutdown Leaves a Lot of Potential Far Cry…

Many players had high hopes for Ubisoft's XDefiant when it was announced in July 2021, with hype around the project steadily building up until its release in 2024. As an intense free-to-play multiplayer FPS, it was always clear that the project would have a lot of competition from other major franchises, although Ubisoft had the benefit of being able to use factions from its own IPs to immediately raise the profile and recognizability of XDefiant.

Despite the short-lived buzz that XDefiant garnered after its launch, Ubisoft announced that the game will be shut down in June 2025. While it was clear that XDefiant's premise as a live-service free-to-play title was unsustainable, there was some merit in the way the title bridged the content of different games into a singular experience, and Ubisoft still has the opportunity to use this premise for an engaging multiplayer mode for the next Far Cry title.

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By Kyle Knight

Far Cry's Next Multiplayer Could Learn From XDefiant's Premise

Ubisoft used the full leverage of its many gaming IPs to complement the gameplay of XDefiant, with the title's in-game factions coming from the likes of Watch Dogs, Rainbow Six, Splinter Cell, and even Assassin's Creed. Far Cry was even the inspiration for its own faction in XDefiant, specifically Far Cry 6's Libertad group, coming with its own range of special and passive abilities that offer some variety to XDefiant's team compositions.

Despite some fans initially regarding XDefiant as a worthy rival of dominant FPS franchises like Call of Duty, the game's impending shut-down does not have to spell the end for some of the title's most intriguing multiplayer concepts. The Far Cry franchise has flirted with the concept of online modes in recent years to some success, with Far Cry 5's Arcade feature even allowing players to create their own experiences, adding an excellent level of replayability and community to the 2018 title.

2021's Far Cry 6 toned this down with a simple focus on cooperative multiplayer, and the next entry to the IP could pull from the iconic factions of Far Cry's past in the same way XDefiant did for Ubisoft's many franchises. Far Cry has explored a huge range of locations, timelines, and people over the years, with most games often featuring the likes of freedom fighters and tyrannical regimes, and these could come together to make up the playable groups of an ambitious Far Cry multiplayer experience.

Far Cry's Faction Variety is Perfect For An All-Star Multiplayer Mode

An experience like this could use the likes of Vaas Montenegro's pirates, the Seed family cult, the Blood Dragons, and Pagan Min's Royal Army as the basis of in-game factions or abilities, with these vastly different groups providing an untold amount of gameplay variety in a multiplayer context. These kinds of factions would likely have eventually been added to XDefiant had the game continued its post-launch content ambitions, and Ubisoft can still bring life to this concept in the reported upcoming 2026 Far Cry project.

While not officially confirmed, the next Far Cry title is rumored to focus on overhauls to the franchise's usual content and core mechanics, making an ambitious multiplayer mode the perfect match for the title.

The rich history and variety of the Far Cry franchise are not celebrated enough, and a multiplayer experience that uses the IP's wide range of prior factions could be a fantastic and engaging tribute to its legacy. While the more wide-spread inspiration that XDefiant took from Ubisoft's many franchises did not work out, a smaller-scale multiplayer experience in the next Far Cry focusing on the best of Far Cry's past is a logical way to preserve the core premise of XDefiant with much less risk and industry pressure.

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