Back in 2021, Ubisoft unveiled XDefiant. a free-to-play experience with inspired by old-school arcady first-person shooters. Following some delays, the game finally launched for PC and consoles in May of this year. However, just over six months later, the game is being sunsetted by Ubisoft.
The free-to-play title developed by Ubisoft San Francisco saw a strong surge of players at launch. Ubisoft even touted it as one of the reasons for having a "solid start" to its financial year. However, by late August, reports were coming out about a dwindling playerbase. The massively successful launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 may have impacted the player numbers even further.
"It was from the start, an incredible challenge," says XDefiant Executive Producer Mark Rubin in a social media post earlier today. "Not only were we trying to shake up the genre by removing Skill-Based Matchmaking (SBMM) while bringing back a more "old-school" arcade shooter experience, but we were also diving into the high-risk, high-reward realm of free-to-play."
"Many free-to-play games take a long time to find their footing and become profitable. 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 adds.
While what will become of the development team at Ubisoft San Francisco wasn"t touched on by Rubin, a report from Insider-Gaming says that Ubisoft will have another round of layoffs in February, 2025. This will reportedly impact both main and support studios that were involved with XDefiant.
XDefiant is no longer available for new players across PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5, and the in-game microtransactions store does not accept purchases anymore. However, those who already have the game in their libraries will see the servers be active until June 3, 2025. Bizarrely, a Season 3 content update will still release for the existing playerbase.
Ubisoft is now offering refunds for anyone who has purchased the game"s Ultimate Founder"s Pack. Moreover, any in-game purchases or DLC that were made since November 3, 2024 are being refunded as well. Find more details about the process in the newly set up Ubisoft FAQ page here.