Ubisoft Working to Fix XDefiant’s Busted Hit Registration

XDefiant launched its pre-season this week and Ubisoft’s free-to-play first-person Call of Duty competitor appears to be going down well with competitive shooter fans hankering for an old-school experience. But there’s one issue with the game that sticks out more than any other: hit registration.

Hit registration is a video game’s ability to detect the impact of projectiles accuracy. Soon after XDefiant launched this week across PC via Ubisoft Connect, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S, players took to social media, subreddits and Discord to say the game was doing a poor job of hit registration, letting characters avoid fire more than they’re used to in other similar games.

Redditor ChuckedBankForFbow called XDefiant’s hit registration “the worst I’ve seen in a long time.” “I’m surviving way longer running and jumping around bullets than I would in any other games cuz their shots just won’t connect lol,” they explained. “M16a4 feels like im shooting hopes and dreams at the enemies,” BlOoDy_PsYcHo666 added.

When XDefiant launched, Ubisoft asked the playerbase to keep in mind that the game is currently in preseason, and that Season 1 will likely provide a more robust playing experience. Now, in a tweet responding to more complaints about hit registration, XDefiant development chief Mark Rubin said “it’s something we are working on.”

You don’t need a petition. 🤣 It’s something we are working on.

— Mark Rubin (@PixelsofMark) May 24, 2024

XDefiant also launched with matchmaking issues, although those seem to be ironed out for the most part as the game heads into its first weekend. XDefiant is not available on Steam, so we do not have an idea of concurrent player numbers, but according to a report from Insider Gaming, XDefiant hit 1.5 million players within just a few hours of launch.

Of course, Ubisoft’s hope is XDefiant proves popular enough long-term to make its free-to-play live service a money-spinner throughout the rest of 2024 and beyond, with Activision reportedly preparing Call of Duty Black Ops 6 for release in late October.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.