From the D-Day landing that opened Medal of Honor: Frontline to the Battle of the Bulge that capped off the American campaign in the unique Call of Duty, it seems like videogames have already told and retold most of the key conflicts that occurred through the second world war. Nonetheless, while players have previously stepped into the combat boots of soldiers on the bottom in various settings from Sicily to Stalingrad, the events of China’s War of Resistance against the Japanese invasion have largely been ignored.
That’s where The Defiant is available in. This story-driven singleplayer shooter from developer Hangzhou Hoothanes Entertainment is ready to explore the prolonged and devastating conflict from the attitude of multiple Chinese soldiers. After getting hands-on with it at a recent BiliBili: First Look event in Shanghai, my first impression of The Defiant is that it’s spotlighting a setting that feels unexplored for the World War II genre, in a singleplayer-focussed style that’s a welcome throwback to a bygone era of story-driven shooters.
The Defiant is structured into 4 important chapters that span a big stretch of the Second Sino-Japanese War, each centred around a unique soldier and setting and featuring contrasting gameplay styles. For instance, one chapter will assist you to change into a Chinese spy within the neon-soaked streets of Shanghai, gathering intelligence on the Imperial Japanese Army and heavily counting on stealth and puzzle-solving to finish your underhanded objectives. In one other, you’ll be tasked with reducing rail lines to rubble via using explosive-based sabotage with a purpose to paralyze Japanese supply lines. The characters you play are fictional, however the battles you fight are based on real encounters and set in locations rebuilt through an exhaustive research process undertaken by the event team.
My temporary hands-on demo of The Defiant took place within the snowy mountains of China’s northeast region and was extremely combat-heavy, tasking me with desperately rushing through caves and trenches and heading off overwhelming hordes of Japanese infantry searching for to steal some more turf. Armed with a Liao Type 13, a booming, bolt-action rifle produced in Manchuria through the Japanese occupation, I battled my way alongside my band of brothers through a string of intense firefights, weaving through forest trees and flaming homesteads in an effort to repel the invaders and make it to a secret camp unscathed. Such was the overwhelming nature of the onslaught, that I barely had time to read the translated subtitles of the orders being barked at me by Chinese compatriots and the threats screamed by the Japanese enemies. (I’m told that an English audio dub is planned for The Defiant’s eventual release.)
From rifles to pistols to hulking machine guns, The Defiant’s arsenal of era-accurate weapons feel uniformly incredible to wield, backed up by bone-rattling audio design and slick reload animations. Broadly speaking it’s a reasonably standard shooter setup, with the flexibility to hold two guns at a time plus grenades, and as an alternative of bandages or medkits The Defiant indicates how close you’re to death by the drops of blood and vignetteing at the sides of the screen. See an excessive amount of red and also you’ll must seek cover and wait on your vision to clear lest you change into one more casualty of war. Given how relentless The Defiant’s enemies proved to be, I saw red more commonly than a bovine in a bull fight.
There have been also a variety of thrillingly cinematic moments through the short mission I played, akin to after I fought my option to a chokepoint and was startled by an enemy soldier surging at me bayonet-first through the smoky haze. At one other time I used to be ambushed in a ruined farmhouse by a knife-wielding assailant, and needed to desperately button-mash through a quicktime event with a purpose to fend him off and brutalize him along with his own blade. Then on the very end of the extent it appeared like the resistance of my squad had proven to be futile, with the enemy calmly executing my remaining comrades down on their haunches while I used to be forced to observe on helplessly, before an unseen ally opened fire on them from offscreen and the image faded to black, thus bringing the temporary but breathless battle to an in depth.
Outside of this short slice of the story, I used to be also given free reign to check a collection of The Defiant’s guns and grenades in a shooting range, with weapons starting from basic bolt-actions and submachine guns through to scoped sniper rifles and heavy mounted belt-fed bullet-spitters. There have been also basic hand grenades and potato masher types too, and even a broadsword for up close and private attacks. The developers told me that this was only a small sample of the total arsenal that can be present within the finished game, and the weapons on offer will evolve and expand because the story shifts from one chapter to the following.
While I’m excited to explore this rarely seen side of World War II, what really appeals to me about The Defiant is that it’s almost entirely a solo experience. While other modern shooters like Call of Duty and Battlefield feature singleplayer modes almost as an afterthought – a brief, Michael Bay-inspired blast ‘em up that may be accomplished in a night and effectively designed to onboard you into months of microtransaction-heavy multiplayer – The Defiant’s important mode is ready to be a chunky, 15-hour campaign that makes it seem to be somewhat of a throwback to an era when EA’s Medal of Honor series was at its peak. I’ve got nothing against anyone who desires to spend their evenings racking up killstreaks, moving through military ranks, and earning prestige rewards, but absolutely none of that’s for me. I prefer to immerse myself in a charming and cinematic singleplayer war story, and that’s exactly what The Defiant is aiming to deliver.
I say almost entirely a singleplayer experience, since the developers revealed to me that there may even be co-op included with The Defiant at launch. Nonetheless, you won’t have the opportunity to team up with a friend within the story, but slightly bask in a separate PvE mode that may feature maps and missions based on those from the important campaign. It looks like it’s still in a conceptual phase of development, though, and the team behind it continues to be workshopping the variety of players (currently estimated to be 4 to eight) and what type of match types can be featured, though based on what I’ve played it might be protected to assume that some type of horde mode could be likely. What’s clear, though, is that co-op is being positioned as an entertaining but entirely optional side to The Defiant’s meaty story-driven important course.
There are fundamentals that also need work, nonetheless. Presently you possibly can run and slide into cover, but you possibly can’t jump or vault over obstacles within the terrain, which implies your general mobility feels noticeably sluggish in comparison with the standards set by other modern shooters. I used to be also somewhat frustrated to search out that although you possibly can crouch in The Defiant, you possibly can’t go prone, and infrequently there have been times that I used to be being shot even after I was behind cover because I simply couldn’t get low enough to properly shield myself from enemy attacks. Lastly, this preview construct could have featured loads of guns and a few grenade types, but considering that a lot of it involved taking over defensive positions against mobs of marauding Japanese soldiers, there was a notable absence of any type of traps to put down just like the brick and ceramic landmines that Chinese forces adopted through the conflict using ancient gunpowder techniques.
Nonetheless, the developers indicated to me that issues and features like these – together with quirky AI behaviours which can be steadily suicidal and a HUD design that doesn’t at all times properly communicate the direction of incoming enemy fire – are still very much being addressed and iterated on based on player feedback, and thankfully there still looks like there’s loads of time for the team to get these items right. The Defiant is currently in development for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, with a release date that’s still to be determined. Even though it’s been within the works since 2023, I get the sense that The Defiant continues to be one other 12 months or two from being finished. From what I’ve seen to this point, though, this could possibly be well definitely worth the wait for anyone keen for a considerable singleplayer shooter that may take you to areas of World War II that you simply’ve never seen before.
Tristan Ogilvie is a senior video editor at IGN’s Sydney office. He attended the BiliBili: First Look event as a guest of the organisers.