The launch of upcoming free-to-play shooter XDefiant has been delayed after Ubisoft shared the title has failed to pass certification on both PlayStation and Xbox platforms. The game was expected to be releasing at the end of last month, but following this setback, a new release date depends on whether platform holders Sony and Microsoft give it a pass in the next two weeks. If they do, launch can be set for the end of September. If a day one update is required to fix any lingering issues, XDefiant will be out in early October.
In a surprisingly open blog post to the community, executive producer Mark Rubin shares more details surrounding the pre-release submission process. He reveals the submission process for platform holders is not based on the game's quality; rather, it's about looking for "compliance bugs". They're flaws relating to how a title interacts with each console — examples given include Trophies tracking correctly and whether friend lists are being updated with the correct information. These issues are entirely separate from the sort of problems consumers pick up on at release, such as glitches or a bad frame rate. As such, a certification fail is not reflective of XDefiant's quality as a general experience.
While developers are unable to share full details due to NDAs put in place, some have revealed on ResetEra how it's very common for most games to fail their first certification submission. We're only hearing about this failure publicly as the XDefiant team has chosen to be very open with its community. Game developers have spoken of extremely specific certification requirements that could stop a game from launching, such as controller button symbols needing to be the exact right shape and colour. It could be as simple as a game missing a warning screen before it boots up to the main menu, or lacking an alert when a save is happening.
With Ubisoft gearing up for another certification submission, it'll be hoping to get XDefiant out as soon as possible. "I know it’s been quite a journey to get to this point and I want to thank every single person that has joined us along the way," said Mark Rubin. "We really can’t wait to go live and share our passion and love for XDefiant with everyone."
[source ubisoft.com]
Comments 38
For a game whose reveal trailer was an instant turn off for me, that open beta was actually so damn stellar. Them dropping the 'Tom Clancy' brand saved it. I can't wait for this game to drop whenever it does and I'm pumped for the future factions.
EDIT: "saved it" for me
To think though that Gollum passed 🤣🤣🤣
Still baffles me how Cyberpunk 2077 somehow managed to pass certification though when that was first released definetly some back handers going on backstage
@DennisReynolds Please read the article. The certification process has nothing to do with picking up on game bugs and glitches.
There’s no chance they’re looking at trophy tracking or 50% of the games this year would have never been released.
Yep, titles often fail first cert. They’re dealing with all that proprietary code from the platform of choice, you have to fit the jigsaw pieces together.
Basically, to any who are interested in learning what a compliance bug is, if your game is on Xbox and Playstation and there is crossplay available, the iconography for the platform that the user is not on must be a generic icon. In addition to that, all iconography for the respective platform needs to be correct, no Playstation user showing up as generic console users, or Xbox icons, or any PC platform icons. All icons for controller need to be correct as well, and you can't have any reference to other platform controllers either.
Also, if there are assets that clearly depict another console on the user's console, that is not allowed either, you can't have Xboxes in Playstation game worlds or vice versa.
Sony is VERY strict about iconography on their platform. You will immediately fail cert if it's wrong. The company I work for has a few teams dedicated to finding first party compliance bugs. It's very rigorous, it's monotonous as all hell, it's taken very seriously. Failing cert really sucks.
And while that doesn't mean that the quality of XDefiant is bad, as there are different teams that handle the functionality, art, crash, etc. bugs. It still really sucks when that happens, and is surprising for a big publisher...
I bet they were trying to sneak NFTs in.
@Constable_What What games does your company work on?
What PS5 games are you currently working on?
@ATaco It's a free to play game from ubisoft, so it will have that and more.
They're only open about it, because they knew it'd leak otherwise.
Removed - trolling/baiting
When I worked at Vivendi they nicknamed me “the showstopper” because I consistently found bugs that would prevent games from going gold, on gold master candidate builds. It got to the point where they made me to hold off on submitting bugs, choosing to see if Sony caught it. If not, I’d submit the bug which would be fixed (hopefully) in a day one patch. This behavior should shock absolutely no one.
@RIGGOR_MORTIS is that you, Walter White?
@glassmusic Do you work at any other game developers now?
Needs the Official Sega Seal of Quality
@XenonKnight I don’t, no. I haven’t since 2008! I was doing QA and the crunches were killing me.
For example: at Activision they had us on the 666 shift. Six am to six pm, six days a week. And of course I’d hit rush hour LA traffic the entire way there and back, so I’d be gone for at least sixteen hours a day.
At Vivendi I’d sometimes work three weeks in a row without a single day off. These were twelve to sixteen hour days, mind. And they were near LAX so the traffic was even worse.
At Nexon we’d occasionally (once a month or so) pull all-nighters, working for almost 24 hours straight. I just couldn’t do that to my body anymore.
Forgot this was even a game and honestly it wasn’t a bad thing 😂
Still doesn’t make me more eager to play it!
@glassmusic Is Activision still doing a 666 shift?
"Controller button symbols needing to be the exact right shape and colour."
I wish this was more consistently applied, the recent DJ max release on Xbox showed all buttons as keyboard inputs.
@XenonKnight I don’t know, I’m not in contact with anyone that works there anymore. Honestly I didn’t love most of the people there, especially the management. It was an absolute meat grinder, by far the worst of all the companies I’d worked for. The only positive thing to come out of it was that I got to change how you played a Nirvana song in the Guitar Hero they had me working on. It was one of the few times they actually listened to me. I brought in my guitar and showed them how to play it on a guitar, and how the buttons in the game could be changed to more closely match actually playing it. In the next build, the song had been changed based on my recommendations. 😹
@glassmusic So one must ask if pushing ALL releases one month further, at point of "before going gold check" could solve this hellish conditions and increase quality of released product?
"Not reflective of game's quality"
Well that's a straight up lie. If the game doesn't pass cert then its failing on the other end of the quality spectrum. The kind of think that drops the starfield user score on metacrtic to a 6.8. That isn't even getting into the fact tha game has been complete garbage since day one.
@LiamCroft I know i just find it amusing no matter the reasons.
@RIGGOR_MORTIS the answer is waivers. A lot of this stuff (yes even the frame rate, unlike claimed above) are part of the certification process. Big enough publishers can get past it and promise to patch the issue. Then you end up with Cyberpunk 2077. I guaranty you that this dumpster fire of a game, just as bad.
Removed - disrespecting others; user is banned
@LiamCroft It actually does. He outlines how they are working towards a waiver needing a day one patch. If the game is unstable you will get flagged by Sony and Microsoft. Huge 3rd party publishers can get waivers and release the game with the promise of a patch. Even get a waiver for having the game on the disc. It's pretty obnoxious.
I'm going to say this once, never trust the head of a projects word at face value. Especially when Ubisoft is involved. They will lie to your face about a problem with their game, about knowing about a problem, and more. I know this because i've been through this with them on the otherside.
I really want to play this game. But the longer it’s not out the closer COD is to releasing and just squashing this game. Even tho i think it’s more fun looking. COD will for sure eat well week 1. But i was hopefully this would have a few months to itself and hold a few hardcore shooting fans like myself off COD. It still may, i am not sure how long it takes to resubmit or fix whatever didn’t pass. Hopefully not long as this game looks fun and i really want to start playing it.
After the launch debacle Atomic Heart had with its’ trophies, I’m glad to see this being addressed BEFORE the game launches. I’m a hardcore trophy hunter and nothing ticks me off more than broken trophies, especially at launch!
@djlard Nah. The issue isn’t time, it’s the management. Some of these games go on for years and then have six weeks of intense crunch.
I wonder if their certification is harder to get than in the past. They must have changed it somehow with games like Anthem which broke PS4s.
@XenonKnight I am not gonna give out that information. lol
Believe me or don't. It's not worth my career
They’ll get it worked out. This is the only fps I’m pumped for this year
Funnily Destiny 2 on PS5, a now Sony owned game, shows keyboard buttons in the in game chat.
It displays Shift and Tab for specific functions and I have no idea what buttons they're supposed to map to so I can never actually use the chat correctly!
This makes me think how the HELL cyberpunk got the ok on ps4 & xbone🤣🤣🤣🤣 what a scam
Although I've not done any of this since 2003 at EA's UK site, most of the compliance stuff tends to be console specific, including correct logos, language and god knows what else..
I remember there being a legal concern over whether a character could say eBay on one of the DefJam fighters, such are the hoops you have to jump through..
Has to be said though, failing like it has here is unusual, although I guess they don't have many QA certification people to do this, like they used to
As much can't comment on whether he is genuine in what he says, it's certainly stuff that doesn't affect gameplay..
@DETfaninATL I just found out I can't get the trophy where you have to put heads on spikes with MK 11 I just "Skull Kabob" im locked out of that one on PS4 because I completed it on PS5 and I all the pikes are full and the crypt is shared between the two platforms....
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