For decades now, FPS developers have been doing everything they can to get us to play their thrilling new objective modes. And also for decades, they've heard us reply: Cool, cool, but what about TDM?
Ubisoft free-to-play shooter XDefiant is the latest to be badgered into including boring old team deathmatch.
"One of the things players have been asking for in the two-and-a-half weeks that we've been live is a TDM mode," XDefiant executive producer Mark Rubin said in an IGN interview on Sunday. "So we'll be seeing that in a couple weeks."
I've been enjoying XDefiant, and was just thinking the other day that I wished it had team deathmatch. The casual playlists currently available are all objective modes: A Team Fortress-like escort mode and point capture variants. I don't mind them, but I never finish a round with just a handful of kills and lots of objective points and think, gee, what a great performance that was. I'm not anti-objective mode, but let's be real: I want da kills, not the most back-caps of point C.
Rubin reiterated the good TDM news on X on Sunday, and at the Ubisoft Forward showcase on Monday, we also got some details about XDefiant's first season, which launches on July 2. It'll add a new faction inspired by Rainbow Six Siege, three maps, three weapons, a capture the flag mode (another classic), and the official start of ranked play. More season one details will be revealed on July 1.
Capture the Flag is enticing: After TDM, it's probably my most-played mode in shooters.
I didn't expect to get into XDefiant at all, but I'm actually enjoying the SBMM-free lifestyle in its casual modes, where I sometimes go wild and sometimes get humbled. I was skeptical that critics of SBMM were really on to something with the claim that facing a variety of skill levels was more fun—I assumed they just wanted to stomp bad-to-mediocre players like me—but I might be coming around to it.
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I wish it were on Steam, but alas, XDefiant is only available on the Ubisoft Store.
Tyler Wilde
Executive Editor
Tyler grew up in Silicon Valley during the '80s and '90s, playing games like Zork and Arkanoid on early PCs. He was later captivated by Myst, SimCity, Civilization, Command & Conquer, all the shooters they call "boomer shooters" now, and PS1 classic Bushido Blade (that's right: he had Bleem!). Tyler joined PC Gamer in 2011, and today he's focused on the site's news coverage. His hobbies include amateur boxing and adding to his 1,200-plus hours in Rocket League.
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