XDefiant is being shut down after only being online for half a year. It is the second time that Ubisoft has tried to get into the free-to-play scene, the first one being Hyperscape and the second one being XDefiant. There was also another attempt in the form of The Division Heartland but it was cancelled. The publisher has failed every time they try to enter the free-to-play games market.
Shortly after the news went live, the game was pulled off and it cannot be downloaded anymore. The registration for new players has also been closed. The game is still playable till June 3, 2025, which is also the date for the closure of the game’s servers. The closure of XDefiant also resulted in the closure of nearly 300 jobs in the three different development studios.
XDefiant was announced in 2021 and was released in May 2024. The game was developed to compete against games such as Valorant and Overwatch. The two games were a major success for their respective studios which feature teams of 6 players competing against another team of 6 while using different characters. Players will use different weapons with each character having a special ability which is common with the genre.
The Concept of Free-to-Play
Free-to-play games are free to download and are supported through in-game purchases that can be cosmetics or in some cases give players an advantage over others. The idea has not really been working for Ubisoft. The studio head of Ubisoft Marie-Sophie de Waubert stated “Despite an encouraging start, the passionate work of the team, and a dedicated fan base, we have not been able to attract and retain enough players in the long term to compete at the level we are aiming for in the very demanding free-to-play FPS market,” She continues “For this reason, the game is still too far from achieving the results required for further significant investment and we are announcing that we will be discontinuing it,”
In the beginning, things were looking good for the game, and it reached the 5 million player mark more quickly than other Ubisoft live-service games. Mark Rubin stated that the game hit 15 million all-time players.
The Losses
The closure of the game comes with some major development. Nearly 300 employees will lose their jobs as mentioned earlier. It also resulted in the closure of developers of the game, Ubisoft San Francisco and Ubisoft Osaka. The closure of Ubisoft San Francisco will result in the job loss of 143 employees while Ubisoft Osaka and Sydney will result in 134 job losses. The number of employees that were laid off makes up nearly half of the workforce that worked on the game. The remaining team of XDefiant will work on other projects of Ubisoft.
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