Another AAA game with live service ambitions has been discontinued. Ubisoft has decided to cancel the further development and support of its free-to-play shooter XDefiant six months after its launch.
What happened?
All new downloads and in-app purchases in XDefiant will no longer be available as of December 3, according to the official announcement. The game’s servers will be shut down on June 3, 2025.
Ubisoft will also provide refunds to all players who purchased virtual currency, or DLC since November 3 or bought the Ultimate Founders Pack.
“Many free-to-play games take a long time to find their footing and become profitable,” XDefiant executive producer Mark Rubin said in a statement. “It’s a long journey that Ubisoft and the teams working on the game were prepared to make until very recently. But unfortunately, the journey became too much to sensibly continue.”
He added that XDefiant was the fastest Ubisoft game to surpass 5 million players. Overall, it has amassed over 15 million unique users since its May 21 launch.
Why is Ubisoft shutting down XDefiant?
- In a statement to investors, the publisher said the decision to discontinue XDefiant “follows a thorough review of the game’s performance, profitability, and market conditions, and aligns with the company’s increased selectivity in its R&D investments.”
- Ubisoft noted that the shooter had a strong launch, but failed to retain a large enough player base to support its further development and become a “viable competitor” in the genre.
- As a result, the French publisher will also close its studios in San Francisco and Osaka, and downsize its Sydney office. Half of the XDefiant team will be moved onto other projects within Ubisoft.
- However, 277 employees will be laid off — 143 people in San Francisco and 134 in Osaka and Sydney.
- “Ubisoft will apply the lessons learned from XDefiant to future free-to-play titles,” the company stated, adding that GaaS titles remain one of the core pillars of its business strategy.
First reports about XDefiant’s troubled state emerged in August, with Insider Gaming claiming that the shooter struggled to reach 20k concurrent players across all platforms. The management allegedly refused to take any responsibility in declining metrics, shifting the burden onto developers.
In October, Rubin claimed that Ubisoft had no plans to shut down XDefiant as the team has been discussing its plans for the second year of content support. “We have done very little marketing so yes our numbers are down but that is just to give the team the time to get the game in a better place before we do bigger spends on marketing to bring new players to the game and to bring back players that have left,” he said.
However, in late October, Ubisoft told investors that XDefiant missed internal targets. With Star Wars Outlaws also falling short of expectations, the French company reported weak H1 results — net bookings were down nearly 22%, while operating loss reached €271.8 million.