Ubisoft’s XDefiant is struggling to find players. If you log in a couple of times in the next two weeks, you will receive $9 in funbucks.

Remember XDefiant? According to Charles-Louis Planade, analyst at Midcap Partners, the sweaty free-to-play version of COD from Ubisoft has struggled to gain a following since its release in May last year? It's obviously keen that you play, and is offering around $9.00 (PS8) worth of company scrip for anyone who plays it once a day between now and September 24,

The game will offer daily login bonuses for anyone who launches the game between yesterday's event start and September 24. Login today to get a weapon XP boost and a battle pass XP bonus. Tomorrow you'll get 100 coins. Then, there's a second XP booster, more coins and so on, until the 24th, when you get a XP/XCoin bundle. This is 900 coins plus 8 boosters.

Perceptive players will notice that this promotion began right onthe same day as the Black Ops 6 Beta ended. I'm going to guess that it's not a complete coincidence. Morgan Park, PC Gamer's shooter czar, said that XDefiant was "as close to a 2010-era CoD outside the Activision Bubble as it gets."

If it wants its reported decline in player numbers reversed, it will have to find a method to divert people's attention from the massive COD-shaped fish that shares its FPS pond (Yes, metaphors such as these are why I get paid big bucks). This promotional event, which coincides with the end of COD fever, is no doubt a deliberate attempt to achieve that.

I have nothing against XDefiant but I don't think it will work very well. Its basic offering, a competent free-to-play COD-like without SBMM and with a sweatier ethos has never struck me anything other than as a niche offer for shooter players who are dissatisfied by the direction COD has gone. This is something that I think has a small but loyal fan base, not something to pin shareholder hope on.