Before we jump into the early stages of Defiance gameplay, I want to prepare you for the mandatory install and patch downloads you’ll encounter before you ever get a chance to play the game. Plan to spend around 45 minutes to an hour getting Defiance ready to play. It may seem a bit long to wait, but believe me, this game needs the install and the patches will address a number of issues the game has had since launch.
Jumping into the game, you’ll be treated to a decent, if predictable, narrative to set the stage for all the mayhem you’ll be causing when you get boots on the ground. The first interactive part of the game will be creating your character. Don’t expect a great amount of depth here. You get to choose:
Gender
Races: Human, Irathian
Origin (Class): Veteran, Survivalist, Outlaw Machinist – Don’t get too caught up here as this is more of a story-related customization than anything that affects your style of play in the early stages of the game
Face: which gives you multiple options for choosing your look, but using the same basic archetypes.
The first few missions are designed to get you acclimated to the game world, your interface and to help you choose what class of player you’d like to start out as. Have no fear, you will have options to dabble in all the classes before the game is over as you level and get EGO points – this game’s XP – to use to purchase new skills.
Once Defiance turns you loose, you’ll find a fairly large open world to explore, mixed with some main quests and side quests that are surprisingly fun to complete with friends or even solo. My biggest first impression with Defiance is the amount of freedom it gives us to play how we like.
Thus far, it does seem that Trion Worlds is dedicated to keeping this product evolving in terms of improving some of the technical hiccups we’ve been having in the game.
I will say that gaining levels does seem to take longer than it should early in the game. This isn’t a huge deal since you can handle even some of the tougher missions at the lower levels with some help from slightly more powerful friends.
My encouragement to you, should you decide to play, is touch ground and go get familiar with the world. There are quite a few cool things to see that you can access even at the very beginning of the game. Plus, learning your way around will make traveling between missions that much easier.
One technical sidetone before I sign off. If, by the time you decide to play Defiance, you still encounter any main storyline missions that glitch out while you are trying to accomplish them–simply abort the mission, go carry out a side mission and then come back and try to do the main mission again. I’ve had this happen once in the beta and once again since starting the full release. This fix worked for me.
