Defiance 2050 Review Header

Unfortunately I never spent time with the original game, but as a fan of various sci-fi titles I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to experience the game from a fresh perspective. The original released at the back end of the last generation on PC, Xbox 360 and PS4 in 2013; now re-released on current-gen consoles with improved graphics, performance and major changes to class and itemisation systems, and as a free-to play title from launch this time around.

Customisation

As with any MMO this can be an essential decision to make! In Defiance 2050, you’re able to select from male or female, 3 different races (all humanoid in design), and various classes. The racial choice is entirely cosmetic; no race has any benefit over another, allowing you to choose a preference without consequence.

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Story & characters

In other MMOs you may often be referred to as the hero or champion. Here you’re simply referred to… as an employee, of the industrialist Karl Von Bach, which in fairness is a testament to his character more than your status in the story. You’re an Ark Hunter, essentially a mercenary treasure hunter, that chase the alien technology that falls from the sky, and have gotten yourself into the middle of a world changing scenario.

Throughout the story you’ll encounter various characters; some who you start the journey with seen in the opening cutscene, and others that you’ll help along the way. You’re tasked with picking up the pieces after your landing into the Bay area didn’t go so great, chasing leads on missing technology.

The currency in the game; scrip, can be earned by completing missions, you’ll also find that you services are required by various characters around the map.

The class system

As part of the story, VBI gave you an AI voice in your head – providing missions and context to parts of the story. Whilst also providing encouragement after defeating enemies. This of course is the essence that grants access to the EGO system. There are new classes to experiment with in Defiance 2050; you have the Assault, Assassin, Guardian, Combat Medic and Demolitionist to choose from, with more to come in the future. The first class you choose is free, but you’ll then have to unlock the others using pursuit points gained through gameplay. Thankfully this process isn’t all that time consuming. Your abilities will differ between the classes, but if you find a team of people to play with, you can combine the benefits of each class to clear through mobs and dungeons.

There’s an element of personalisation and strategy for how to assign skills, as you can earn up to 25 class points gained from reaching EGO level 25, but are capped at spending 5 points in each tier. That is of course unless you decide you want to try a different class, where you can gain and assign more points to that specific class.

Experience is gained upon kills, completing challenges, pursuits and of course; missions, and is fairly fast to level up. Instead, the level ‘grind’ is more tailored towards weapon power level e.g Destiny. Providing you have unlocked another class, you can change class at any time, but the skill points do not carry over between classes – each class must be levelled up individually.

Defiance 2050 Review Class Tree

Combat & upgrades

Most MMOs live or die based on how engaging their combat systems are. This is the main aspect of the game that was adjusted for Defiance 2050. You receive a wide range of weapon types to choose from and there are no class requirements for weapons. As your power rating on weapons and equipment increases, you’ll find higher level ones, but this also incentives you to try weapons out which you’re not familiar with, if it’s of a higher power rating than your currently equipped.

The game enables you to stay fairly mobile and versatile. Jumping, diving, crouching, along with early access to vehicles that can resummoned frequently. Rolling can purge certain afflictions, such as Hellbug goo, and fire and critical hits can cause big damage.

Combat feels solid, with some weapons feeling more satisfying than others. Shotguns in particular are enjoyable with their impactful damage, but grenade launchers for example feel unfortunately underwhelming. There’s fun to be had experimenting with the game’s weapons, witnessing the increasingly larger damage numbers flying off enemies.

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Enhancements & mods

I progressively found the EGO level of enemies began surpassing my own; whilst missions were still doable; tackling the mini-bosses at the end of various missions became a serious chore. Whilst frustrating at times, this was partially my own fault for not properly understanding how to upgrade my weapons. I must admit it took me many hours before I worked out how to do so – something the game could have done a better job of explaining. Although on a positive note; by this point I had accumulated a decent number of weapons, and enough salvage to use with them.

Using salvage that you receive early for all different classes of weapons; by either drops, mission rewards; recycling weapons or from the Defiance store, you’re able to spend that salvage on upgrading a particular gun.

Weapons typically come with their own special stats, which can be improved or changed to something else. On top of that there are modifications; which you’ll earn along the way, similar to how you earn salvage. These can add elemental damage to your weapon, scopes, and various attachments. You will need to spend ‘caeruleum cores’ to unlock them; a currency that can be earned throughout the game.

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Loadouts

You can select 2 loadouts from the start; and can purchase more slots if you wish up to a maximum of 6. I have not personally found the need to do this, 2 slots have been sufficient thus far.

You can switch loadouts mid-combat, but it takes a few seconds to change, so make sure you’re in cover first. This feature is a welcome one, as you can select a loadout to specially deal with groups; that are great against Hellbugs (shotguns and explosives) and another to deal with humanoid enemies, like snipers or assault rifles.

Missions and dynamic events

From main missions, side quests, Sieges, Arkfalls and more – there’s a fair amount of variety in mission types on offer in Defiance 2050. Once starting missions or other dynamic activities anyone in the vicinity completing similar tasks and objectives will count towards yours as well. This can be a downside if you wish to do them all yourself, but it provides a fairly nice dynamic feeling when you’re in the middle of a mission, being swarmed by mutants, when all of a sudden 2 or 3 Arkhunters arrive and save your hind.

Side missions vary in length – scan or collect items then drop them off at a designated point, or enter a facility for a multi-stage mission that are quite lengthy. There’s definitely an element of repetition where you may end up doing the same thing side quests as in major missions. Mission objectives could have been more interesting, there’s definitely room for improvement here.

Alongside missions, there are dynamic events which you can encounter such as Arkfalls and Sieges – 8 stages of a horde mode, defending points with a time limit. I’ve encountered a variety of types; offering different mechanics to each other, with different enemies. Unfortunately, from what I’ve experienced so far, the overabundance of players; result in relatively easy Arkfalls. Arkfalls provide strong rewards from loot and experience.

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Environment/world

The world has simultaneously become barren and overgrown in the aftermath of the war, and devastation brought about by Arkfalls. An apocalyptic feeling that looks like it has been revived over time, with an amalgamation of terrestrial and alien terraformed land. Whilst the tilesets in the early game do not differ much, areas still feel unique, including the different farms in Madera, all having their own threats to deal with. It does all feel a little too drab and lifeless though.

The game could have benefited from more neutral type creatures that you often find in other MMOs which add to the living world, and provide a more authentic feel. So far the only examples of this I have come across are various boars that can be found at the ranches.

The enemies you come across belong to a variety of factions. Within each faction enemies come under different specialisations; for example, in the first area you encounter mutant; shotgunners, riflemen, cleavers (melee), Snipers and mini-bosses. There’s some variation on model designs for individual types, but they’re mostly the same archetypes.

From cyborgs to raiders, votan, hellbugs, cybenetic scrappers and more. There’s a decent variety in enemies but it would have been nice to see more.

Challenges & goals

There are various timed challenges scattered throughout the world which offer a somewhat varied distraction; from horde style modes, or racing through checkpoints. Unlike other mission types; challenges do not appear on the large map, but rather are easily visible on the mini map when nearby.

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Goals, or pursuits are additional in-game achievements that can merit rewards once completed, these can range from exploration, Arkfalls, completing side missions, finding audio recordings and much more.

There are of course achievements / trophies to be had with Defiance 2050, though if you want to 100% the game you’ll have to be in it for the long haul, and buddy up with others or use social chats to get the party achievements done.

Transport & mobility

Mobility around the map is fairly easy; the game gives you the ability to fast travel to designated points once explored across the regions. A worthy early game feature that is appreciated, is that you receive your first vehicle (mount) near the beginning of the game; without that, it’s likely that travel would have felt like a chore.

You can level your vehicle up, and receive more cosmetic variants along the way by completing missions and pursuits; found in the goal menu. Time trails are a good way to test a vehicle out that you may not have seen before.

Whilst driving, encountering a cluster of enemies becomes indistinguishable with minefields. Hitting two enemies with your vehicle will blow up your vehicle and send you flying out. If you accidentally run over an enemy and blow yourself up on the vehicle, fear not! You will be able to resummon after a short period.

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Vehicle physics certainly aren’t the best and are noticeable area that could use improvement. Whilst driving around the world gets the job done, it doesn’t feel particularly all that responsive or great.

Payment options

There appears to be no major pay walls present. Paying here means that you can unlock cosmetic outfits sooner than if you were to complete missions or pursuits to unlock them instead.

If you choose to support it, there are purchasing options to improve or enhance gameplay – you can increase inventory space (it’s worth noting I never felt hampered by the default space), buy vehicle skins, increased experience gain and treasure key consumables.

As it stands Defiance 2050’s payment model seems surprisingly fair. Most cosmetics can be earned in-game regardless and the boosts never feel necessary. Over time I’m sure more store-exclusive cosmetics will appear, but right now Trion should be commended for a fair micro-transaction model.

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Graphics

Defiance 2050 certainly looks dated by modern standards, but manages to still hold up fairly well in most regards. On an Xbox One X the game runs at a high resolution with great image quality and mostly 60fps performance. The base consoles still see various improvements to the game’s visuals. Whilst it’s not a leap over the original, it’s a step in the right direction.

Positives

  • Fun combat
  • Fast loading times
  • Completely free
  • Planned future content and support for the community

Combat is good fun; especially if you find a set of weapons you like. Seeing the damage numbers fly out from enemies and increasingly progressing in power is almost as satisfying as in other looter shooters such as Borderlands.

There’s a solid looking roadmap planned for the next few months of content to come to the game. Fingers crossed the developers take an aggressive approach to build upon what’s here at a regular pace.

Negatives

  • Lack of lore
  • Fairly weak story
  • Launch bugs, lag and crashes
  • Repetitive mission types
  • Arkfalls appear too easy

The game’s lore and story is a little on the weak side – a codex or lorebook may have been a good thing to include here, so players could dive further into the lore in their own time. Audio logs help, but aren’t fleshed out.

It is not uncommon to see various issues and bugs at launch with an MMO, and there were certainly server issues here early on prompting a delay in my review. Initially enemies had major lagspikes making the game near unplayable. Things have improved since then however, with only pockets of lag.

Pre-patch, I was getting a crash about once every hour on average, and found them occurring during critical times during sieges and Arkfalls. Post-patch, I have not seen a single crash to date, after several hours of gameplay; as well as participating in Arkfalls and sieges. I can’t conclusively say the issue is resolved, but it’s certainly improved at least.

Overall verdict:

Considering the game is completely free, the value of the game is undeniably positive. The game does show its age often and at times feels repetitive, but there’s plenty of fun to be had here particularly when playing with others.

The crashes and lagspikes were frustrating early on, however Trion have shown a willingness to fix and tackle the major issues; which shouldn’t go unnoticed.

With further regular content updates planned, there’s a lot of future potential for Defiance 2050; it’ll be interesting to see the direction that Trion takes with the game.

REVIEW OVERVIEW
If we had to score it now
VIAGame provided by publisher for review
Notorious teller of gaming tales. A completionist through and through. Steve is a staff writer for Gaming LYF.
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