Ubisoft is shutting down the free-to-play shooter XDefiant and disbanding the studio that worked on the game. The project no longer accepts new players, and the servers will shut down on June 3, 2025.
The company has promised refunds to anyone who bought the fullest edition of the game. Money for in-game purchases made last month will also be refunded. The refund will take about 8 weeks and will occur automatically. Explanations of what content the money can be refunded for can be found at the link.
The game will continue as usual until the summer of 2025. A third season will be released with the promised additional content, but that’s it. Also, new players will not get access to XDefiant. Only those who logged into the shooter before December 3 can launch it.
XDefiant had a challenging path to release, but upon release, the game attracted some attention and even inspired optimism among the creators. However, the excitement then began to subside.
Ubisoft has steadfastly refused to release XDefiant on Steam, so accurate data on the game’s dying online presence must exist. According to insider Tom Henderson, the game racked up 7.6 million unique players the week after release.
He also revealed that XDefiant’s total simultaneous online presence across all platforms in August 2024 barely reached 20,000 players, which needs to be higher for a free-to-play shooter.
In September, the game’s producer, Mark Rubin, said the game was “definitely not dying” and revealed plans to support the shooter. Then, in October, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 was released, receiving the most significant number of players in the series, largely thanks to Game Pass.
We wrote about CoD: Black Ops 6 in the article Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Attracted a Record Number of Players in the Series.
The leading competitor’s success finally finished XDefiant. The lack of a skill-based matchmaking system (SBMM) in Ubisoft’s shooter, which CoD fans have complained about, has yet to help.
Ubisoft is closing its development studios in San Francisco and Osaka. Also, the work curtailed part of the team from Sydney. About 277 people will lose their jobs. Half of XDefiant’s developers will be distributed among other teams.
The failure of another game service will not stop Ubisoft. In the same address about the closure of XDefiant and two studios, the company’s director of studios and portfolio, Marie-Sophie de Waubert, said that Ubisoft is still betting on the game-service model.
