Ever since the debut of XDefiant, it has been stated by many in the community as a Call of Duty “killer” due to its similarities to CoD titles from earlier in the 21st century. However, Ubisoft has brought tons of features to their game to set it apart from Activision’s massive series.
While it’s one of the biggest releases for Ubisoft, the F2P shooter has received a reasonably mixed reception from fans so far, with many accusing it of being a rushed product. Although the studio is actively trying to fix all the technical issues, it needs to quickly shift their attention to one big problem in the game.
XDefiant Needs to Deal with Offensive In-Game Usernames
It’s a known fact that offensive usernames in any video can lead to a hostile environment and harassment of players. They completely undermine the enjoyment of any game and can discourage participation, which eventually leads to a toxic community atmosphere.
We’ve seen a range of game developers having proper rules and reporting mechanics in place to deal with such usernames. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for XDefiant.
While the developer has been constantly adding quality-of-life improvements and features to the shooter, it still needs a proper system to filter out offensive usernames in the game and a clear way to report them.
Is there any way to report a username in the game?
byu/The_Owl_Bard inXDefiant
In the last couple of days, there has been a rise in players bringing attention to this problem on Reddit. Gamers are constantly going against opponents who use various kinds of offensive words, racial slurs, and other things in their usernames.
It’s mind-boggling how Ubisoft would ban you for saying “wack” in the chat but won’t deal with these usernames. If the studio wants to establish the F2P shooter as the face of the genre and snatch the title away from Call of Duty, it clearly needs to work on the XDefiant reports system. It’s one of the most basic features in a game and shouldn’t even take that long to be sorted out.
Ubisoft’s Mark Rubin Says Gamers Can Move On
Well, if you can’t appreciate the F2P shooter at it’s worst; you clearly don’t deserve it at its best. That’s what the game’s executive producer, Mark Rubin, basically told gamers who are frustrated with XDefiant‘s various issues.
In a shocking response shared on X/Twitter, Rubin talked about the challenges of the game engine the shooter runs on, as well as the difficulties of being a new entry in the shooter genre that’s dominated by titans such as Apex Legends, Fortnite, and Call of Duty.
Rushed out? No. What we have is an engine that has only ever been an MMO. And so all of the infrastructure for an FPS has had to be built up from the ground floor. Even CoD started on ID tech which was a shooter engine. Apex started on a shooter engine. But for us we are working…
— Mark Rubin (@PixelsofMark) July 5, 2024
Sure, his response can frustrate a lot of gamers, but he isn’t entirely incorrect. That’s because the Call of Duty we’ve known and loved to play today also had a slow start.
Apex Legends was quite literally developed on Titanfall‘s framework, and Fortnite was designed as a co-op shooter before becoming a battle royale. It takes a lot of time to establish a franchise, and they don’t always have the best starts.
While telling gamers to “move on” isn’t the greatest look, it does tell us about the level of pressure the developers are under, both from executives and fans. Let’s hope they can finally nail this game and allow it to reach the heights of other shooters.
Have you had any encounters with offensive names in XDefiant? If so, let us know in the comments.
