Ubisoft will shut down XDefiant in 2025

Ubisoft is shutting down its free-to-play shooter XDefiantUbisoft announced Tuesday. Servers will remain on until June 3, 2025, but the game will no longer be offered for download and player registration will be closed. Despite the sunset, XDefiant players will be able to access the content from the third season sometime in the “near future”. Nearly 300 people – 143 in the San Francisco office and 134 across Ubisoft’s Osaka and Sydney locations – will be laid off. The other half of XDefiant production team will move on to other roles at Ubisoft, according to chief studies and portfolio manager Marie-Sophie de Waubert.

“Despite an encouraging start, the passionate work of the team and a committed fan base, we have not been able to attract and retain enough players in the long run to compete at the level we aim for in the very demanding free-to -play FPS market,” wrote de Waubert in an internal message published on Ubisoft’s website. “As a result, the game is too far away from achieving the necessary results to enable further significant investment, and we are announcing that we will trigger it.”

With XDefiant closure and the hundreds of layoffs, Ubisoft said it is closing its production studios in San Francisco and Osaka entirely. Insider Gaming reported that a “skeleton crew” will be retained to keep XDefiant runs until its complete closure.

XDefiant players who purchased the $69.99 Ultimate Founder’s Pack will receive a full, automatic refund, according to XDefiant executive producer Mark Rubin in a letter to the community. All purchases made within the previous 30 days will also be refunded. But according to one Ubisoft FAQ“Founder’s Pack and Founder’s Pack Elite are not eligible for refund.” Rubin said players should expect any refund within eight weeks.

XDefiant was released on May 21 of this year after an announcement of the project in 2021. At launch, the game was apparently a success: It reportedly reached 1 million players within hours of its official launch, according to Insider Gaming. No official player or revenue figures have been released, but Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said during an investor call in September that the game did not live up to expectations. In October Rubin wrote the X that numbers were down due to “very little marketing”, a strategy designed to “get the game to a better place” before ramping up marketing to attract new and lapsed players. He wrote that he was “crystal clear” because there were no plans to close XDefiant after its fourth season, according to an Insider Gaming report.

In its latest earnings report at the end of October, Ubisoft reported that its sales fell almost 20%but that engagement metrics for its games were up. Ubisoft also reported that it reduced its staff by more than 2,000 people in the previous 24 months – a number that is likely a mix of both layoffs and voluntary departures. Ubisoft employed 18,666 people in September, with the company reportedly “on track” to continue cutting costs. (Employee retention, it said, was good — “close to historic levels.) Star Wars Outlaws underperformed, Ubisoft said, but remained silent on the status of XDefiant — so quiet on the game that an analyst asked Guillemont about the game’s waning success. “XDefiant is behind our expectations, but the game-as-a-service strategy remains core,” Guillemont said at the time. That line still seems to hold true: de Waubert said in the memo to staff Tuesday that games-as-a-service remains “a pillar” of Ubisoft’s strategy, citing success with Rainbow Six, The Crew, and For Honor.