XDefiant Season 2 brings Far Cry New Dawn faction and private matches

By Tomas Franzese September 18, 2024

The Highwaymen faction is Season 2 of XDefiant. — Ubisoft

Ubisoft held another XDebrief for its Call of Duty-like competitive shooter XDefiant today, revealing that it will add a new faction based on Far Cry New Dawn, private matches, and more.

Each new XDefiant season will bring a new faction with it during its first year , and this time, that faction is the Highwaymen. The Highwaymen are based on the enemies from Far Cry: New Dawn, a postapocalyptic spinoff of the open-world shooter series released in 2019. Season 2’s launch map, Waterfront, is also based on that game. It’s the second Far Cry faction to come to XDefiant, as Libertad from Far Cry 6 was in the game at launch. As is the case with all factions, the Highwaymen offer up three unique abilities that players can use mid-match.

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They have an M79 grenade launcher that fires explosive grenades at their enemies and an automatic Scrap Turret they can deploy on the battlefield. Their Ultra ability is Saw Launcher, which fires sawblade projectiles that bounce off walls. This all feeds back into a unique passive ability where their rate of fire and reload speeds increase the more kills players get. The Highwaymen seem like the most aggressive faction in XDefiant yet.

The highwaymen faction uses a Scrap Turret in XDefiant. — Ubisoft

Outside of the new faction, the new season will bring a new battle pass and three new weapons. Those weapons are the high-powered PP-19 submachine gun, the lightweight L86 LSW light machine gun, and the semi-automatic SPAS-12 shotgun. XDefiant’s Bomb mode — a six-round mode similar to attack-and-defend shooters like Counter-Strike 2, Valorant, and Spectre Divide — will also enter casual playlists during this season. Ubisoft will take feedback from that and then add it into Ranked mode.

Season 2 of XDefiant adds private matches, although it will be a beta version of the concept. Private matches will let players set up custom games just for them and their friends. The map, mode, ranked or unranked status, lobby player count, and team size can all be customized. New maps called Signal and Air & Space will also come to XDefiant at some point during Season 2, bringing its map count to 20.

XDefiant is available for free across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. Season 2 begins on September 24, although PC players will be able to test out its new content for three hours on September 20.

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Gaming Staff Writer

As a Gaming Staff Writer at Digital Trends, Tomas Franzese reports on and reviews the latest releases and exciting…

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