Is XDefiant cross-platform?

By Jesse Lennox Updated May 21, 2024

A Defiant standing with a gun in front of a large yellow X. — Ubisoft

An XDefiant soldier looking at an explosion. — Ubisoft

Ubisoft’s latest shooter is looking to break into the very competitive free-to-play market with XDefiant. This is a third-party studio that very rarely releases any of its games on a single platform, and a multiplayer shooter like this needs to be available in as many places as possible to succeed. However, if it doesn’t have cross-platform support, then it might as well be exclusive since the player base will be split regardless.

Has XDefiant made the critical error of not having any cross-platform support, or can you pick up this game knowing you will be able to find a match easily? Let’s find out.

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Is XDefiant cross-platform?

Yes, XDefiant is thankfully fully cross-platform between PC, Xbox Series X, and PlayStation 5. That makes it all the easier to convince a friend to give it a try since it costs nothing and you can all play together even if you don’t have the same console. You also have the option to turn off cross-play if you prefer to stick to only matching up against others on your system. A future update is also planned to allow console players to exclude PC players from cross-play to remove any advantages they may have using keyboard and mouse over controllers.

Even better, cross-progression is also available between each platform so you can start your account on one system and take that progress to another without having to start over. This is done by linking your Ubisoft account to your PSN or Xbox account to freely move between them.

Jesse Lennox has been a writer at Digital Trends for over four years and has no plans of stopping. He covers all things…

Gaming

All XDefiant characters and how to unlock them

XDefiant

XDefiant is a free-to-play shooter from Ubisoft, which brings together multiple factions from the publisher's long list of franchises. Each of these factions have their own abilities and passives that make them suited for certain playstyles, so knowing which one works best for you should be an important part of your strategy. While individual characters within these factions share the same abilities, unlocking them all gives you access to more customization options via unique skins.

If you'd like to unlock every character in the game, you'll need to complete challenges that typically ask you to use one of their faction's two abilities on your foes or allies. These can take quite a while to finish, so an alternative method is to purchase a skin for that character in the shop, which will automatically unlock them for you to use. However, this costs real money, so we only recommend doing it if you already know you want the skin, too.

Gaming

XDefiant is nearly unplayable at launch due to server issues

A Defiant standing with a gun in front of a large yellow X.

XDefiant developers are working on a big fix on launch day, with multiple players reporting they can't access the multiplayer servers to play this game.

The Ubisoft free-to-play shooter went live on Tuesday, but players immediately experienced issues logging in to play. While some were able to access the game, many were stuck in long queues or didn't see the option to join a game. One Reddit user reported they were able to get one game in before getting stuck waiting for a match. Another noted that they immediately got an "unable to find match" error message when trying to join a game.

Gaming

XDefiant Twitch drops: rewards list and how to redeem them

A character in XDefiant

Ubisoft is giving XDefiant a big push for its full release. Not only is this a completely free shooter with full cross-platform support, but the team is dishing out free rewards for anyone who tunes in to Twitch streams of the game over the next six weeks. That's a lot of potential rewards, but you need to know what streams to tune into and how you can claim those drops. We'll also give you a rundown of each reward you can get week by week to make sure you don't miss out on your next favorite gun skin.
How to redeem XDefiant Twitch drops
Starting at 9 a.m. PT on May 21, Ubisoft will begin hosting the first XDefiant stream called the All-Star Series. After this initial stream, rewards will be given out each week on any XDefiant stream you decide to watch.

You can earn three rewards every week for the first six weeks of XDefiant's launch. The first unlocks after watching for 30 minutes, the second after 1 hour, and the final reward for 1 hour and 30 minutes of total watch time that week. To redeem the rewards, you need to first make sure your Twitch account is linked to your Ubisoft account.