Ubisoft Shutting Down XDefiant in June 2025 and Reportedly Closing Studios in San Francisco and Osaka - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 03 December 2024 / 2,751 Views
Ubisoft is reportedly shutting down XDefiant in June 2025, according to several sources who spoke with Insider Gaming and confirmed by the Executive Producer on the game Mark Rubin via Twitter.
The sources heard this news from an internal all-hands meeting held today. The game is shutting down due to a low number of players and poor player spending.
"I am unfortunately here today to announce that XDefiant will be shutting down," said Rubin.
"Starting today (December 3, 2024), new downloads and player registrations will no longer be available. We will still release our Season 3 content in the near future (exact date TBD) and the servers will remain active until June 3, 2025.
"For those who purchased the Ultimate Founder’s Pack, you’ll receive a full refund. Players who made any purchases within the last 30 days will also be fully refunded. Those refunds should happen automatically within 8 weeks of today and you can find more details on our official website, XDefiant.com."
Ubisoft will be laying off employees at its San Francisco studio, as well as supporting studios. Some staff have already received information on severance packages.
It is also reported that a second wave of layoffs will occur in February 2025, which will see Ubisoft San Francisco and Osaka shutting down. Around 170 to 180 employees are expected to be laid off.
Hello XDefiant Fans,
— Mark Rubin (@PixelsofMark) December 3, 2024
I am unfortunately here today to announce that XDefiant will be shutting down.
Starting today (December 3, 2024), new downloads and player registrations will no longer be available. We will still release our Season 3 content in the near future (exact date…
Read the full statement from Mark Rubin below:
Hello XDefiant Fans,
I am unfortunately here today to announce that XDefiant will be shutting down.
Starting today (December 3, 2024), new downloads and player registrations will no longer be available. We will still release our Season 3 content in the near future (exact date TBD) and the servers will remain active until June 3, 2025.
For those who purchased the Ultimate Founder’s Pack, you’ll receive a full refund. Players who made any purchases within the last 30 days will also be fully refunded. Those refunds should happen automatically within 8 weeks of today and you can find more details on our official website, XDefiant.com.
A few years ago, Ubisoft and the SF Dev team embarked on a bold adventure to develop a new arcade shooter called XDefiant. It was from the start, an incredible challenge. 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. And for that I want to applaud not only the Dev team but also Ubisoft leadership for taking that chance!
Free-to-play, in particular, is a long journey. 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.
I am, of course, heartbroken to have to be writing this post. Yes, this game has been a personal passion for me for years and yes, I know that not all challenges lead to victory, but I also want to recognize all of the developers who are being affected by this closure. Each and every one of them is a real person with a real life separate from our own and they have all put so much of their own passion into making this game. And I hope that they can be proud of what they did achieve. I know that I will always be proud and grateful to have worked with such a great team! A team that really punched above its weight class.
And what they achieved is truly remarkable. The early response from players when XDefiant launched was amazing—we broke internal records for the fastest game to surpass 5 million users and in the end we had over 15 million players play our game! That is something to be extremely proud of, especially considering how tough this genre is. So, thank you to all of the developers who put their passion into making this game!
If there’s one thing, I hope we can all take away from this experience, it’s the importance of open, honest communication between developers and players. This “player-first” mentality along with respectful, non-toxic conversations between developers and players has been one of the standout differences that made XDefiant so special. From my very first post about XDefiant, this was the vision I wanted to champion, and I hope it leaves a positive mark on how the game industry treats its players and communities.
To our players, THANK YOU! From the bottom of my heart, I want to express my deepest gratitude for the incredible community that has grown around XDefiant. Your passion, creativity, and dedication have inspired us every step of the way.
With the utmost of love and respect,
Mark
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Ubi's talk about xDefiant doing well was BS? Well now I've seen everything...
I guess that's why there was no Steam announcement for this. With how the past year has gone for Ubisoft it really feels like they could be in deep shit soon if Shadows underperforms.
Correct term is "when" not if...
Well the AC series is still really popular so it should sell well based on that alone even with the backlash. Though if it'll sell well enough to meet expectations and help get the company out of the rut it's in isn't set in stone.
Not necessarily, you can say the same for Dragon Age, it's a really popular series but did Failguard sell well? Not at all, player count never exceeded 89K on PC (PC always has the highest playercount vs consoles) and is now perma at sub 20K and falling fast.
Also for the sheer amount of time Shadows has been in dev combined with the delay into next year, it would have to sell countless millions with player base in the high hundreds of thousands consistently to be deemed a success, which honestly is not at all likely.
February will indeed be the death knell for poor little blind Ubisoft.
The Dragon Age series is kinda niche compared to AC though. Valhalla was a huge success though I agree that Shadows matching that level of success is up in the air. Hopefully it does do well enough and the company manages to turn things around in the coming years since it'd be great if Ubisoft became a respectable name.
Hopefully it does well? Ummm no lol I don't think you realize how critical it is that it does very poorly. Ubisoft will never turn it around unless the CEO is fired which all investors are begging for currently. If shadows succeeds with current management, chances of CEO getting fired goes down. Not to mention Ubisoft simply doesn't deserve success by any means. Fire all management top to bottom and we'll see where things go.
Perhaps but I said hopefully since the ideal scenario is them being able to turn things around without getting into deep shit since if Shadows does do very poorly then a lot of people will probably lose their jobs and I'd rather Ubisoft doesn't get bought, especially not by a company like Tencent which has been rumoured recently.
Things just keep getting worse for Ubisoft. Hope the people who lost their jobs are able to get back on their feet quickly.
Oh nooo another hero shooter COD live service crashes and burn.....
I played the PSN test version. It was a boring generic shooter with nothing special about it.
Have the prime years of looter shooters passed already?
I’d forgotten about this thing. Prior to release struck me as a copycat title with little fanfare or appeal. Didn’t play it but from responses it didn’t seem too bad but didn’t stand out so faded from attention quickly.
Ultimately sees the same fate as other bangwagon games like Anthem, Marvels Avengers etc.
Not just Concord then...
Essay Pro