XDefiant’s Launch Reportedly Hit 1 Million Players In Under 3 Hours

XDefiant is off to the races, having reportedly already reached over 3 million unique players, with the first million coming two and a half hours after launch.

The above statistics are according to Insider Gaming, which reports some of the launch numbers surrounding Ubisoft’s free-to-play answer to Call of Duty. According to Insider Gaming, the game is “well on its way” when it comes to surpassing Ubisoft’s internal goals in terms of number of players. Those launch numbers make XDefiant the fastest Ubisoft game to ever reach 1 million players, and are even bigger than free-to-play competitor Apex Legends. Respawn’s battle royale saw around 1 million unique players in its first eight hours after launch back in 2019.

Insider Gaming reports that as of earlier today, May 23, XDefiant had around 300,000 concurrent players across all platforms, with it reaching over 500,000 players shortly after launch despite early server issues that made it unplayable for many.

GameSpot has reached out to Ubisoft for official comment and confirmation of XDefiant’s launch numbers.

XDefiant may look similar to Call of Duty (Mark Rubin, one of Call of Duty’s longtime executive producers, is behind the project), but it does differentiate itself in a few key ways. For starters, the game features various factions and classes inspired by other Ubisoft franchises like Splinter Cell, The Division, and Far Cry. It also puts an emphasis on its lack of skill-based matchmaking, something that has been a sore spot for many Call of Duty players in recent years.

Like most shooters in the modern age, XDefiant does support cross-play and cross-progression, as well as various cosmetics and a battle pass. However, Ubisoft has stressed XDefiant will not feature any kind of pay-to-win mechanics. XDefiant is available on current-gen consoles and PC, but is notably not on Steam, with those who want to with a mouse and keyboard instead needing to download and install the Ubisoft Connect launcher.