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If you’ve followed the gaming industry over the years, you’d know that every new game faces many challenges soon after launch. Amid several huge problems with the gameplay, the developers of XDefiant decided to release limited character skins for sale.
Limited Character Skins Over New Patches
On the night of May 27, the official XDefiant account on X posted: “Oooh, we’ve got style! Check out these new Beto and Sebastian character skins available in-game. Leaving the store May 29”. It’s fair to say that this announcement did not sit well with the fans.
Just as you might have guessed, the fans’ responses weren’t very kind and supportive. As mentioned there are currently several more important problems with the game. Some of them require urgent attention, like the controller issue, the hit reg, some overpowered weapons, and bunny-hopping. Releasing the limited character skins amid these unsolved issues seems kind of tone-deaf.
An X user, ୨୧ Irie ୨୧ Baldur’s Gate 3 Sprout, said: “No more of my money until you fix me getting hit when CLEARLY around corners or my hits not registering”. Another player, church, chimed in: “For real, I deleted the game, and won’t play until it’s fixed”.
Gainz insisted: “Put more into fixing the current state of the game before worrying about microtransactions. Says a lot about the priorities of y’all”. Michael agreed: “Great we can get new skins before you fix bugs”.
Redditors joined in on the action. One of them, sketch252525, said: “I don’t understand this and never will. What’s the point of skin for a character in a game with a first-person view? You, the buyer can’t even fully see the skin that you bought, Most of the time. Maybe at the start of that game and at the end”. They added: “Also, the Battle Pass in this game sucks. Not worth a single penny”.
Fans Ask Devs to Solve Existing Problems Before Adding Aesthetics
Back on X, most of the remaining negative comments were by players dissatisfied with different aspects of the game. Tanim Ahmad said: “Servers still lagging and timing out”. Another user, Wimz, agreed: “Fix the servers we don’t need skins”. Others had problems with purchased items.
Kairan Phoenix reported: “I bought the battle pass and none of the times show up for me. No skins nothing, it says they are unlocked but they are not visible to apply. (On Xbox)”. This statement made fans wary of purchasing anything because no one likes just throwing their money away for nothing.
In the sea of negative responses, there were a couple of positive ones. ValiantReaper said: “That Hi-Velocity skin is pretty dope”. Another positive response came from Aspectjosh. They said: “Looks clean I need to cop”.
While we do understand that aesthetics are, and should be, a big part of the experience, this sort of approach can accidentally feel like a money grab. When developers have players waiting for some major fixes, like in the case of XDefiant, we would expect them to prioritize the players over character skins. That being said, the number of developers on this game is probably quite high, and the ones behind the skins’ release probably have nothing to do with the bug fixes. Hopefully, they will be able to deliver and do both, to offer great aesthetics in a bug-free game.