Ubisoft loses faith in free-to-play CoD competitor XDefiant, will shut it down in 2025: ‘Many free-to-play games take a long time to find their footing and become profitable’
XDefiant, Ubisoft’s free-to-play CoD-like, will close by June next year, the game’s official X account has confirmed. According to the announcement the “sunsetting” process will begin today, though the promised Season 3 content will still be rolled out ahead of the game’s June 3, 2025 D-Day.
As of today, new players will not be able to access XDefiant, nor will existing players be able to make purchases. Anyone who purchased the Ultimate Founders Pack will receive a refund, while any purchases made during the last 30 days will also receive a refund.
Executive Producer Mark Rubin acknowledged the risky nature of free-to-play games in his statement, also posted on X. “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,” he wrote. “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.”
The news comes only two months after Rubin insisted that XDefiant “is absolutely not dying“, following reports of internal discontent with the game’s performance. Still, it was possible to believe Ubisoft would stick with it: the company has a decent track record supporting its live service games, including For Honor and Rainbow Six Siege, despite early difficulties finding an audience. The big exception was, of course, Hyperscape, an answer to the battle royale craze that barely lasted two years.
That’s much longer than XDefiant lasted: it launched on May 21, 2024, though it hasn’t broken any records in the short-lived GaaS game stakes: that arguably goes to Concord. Ubisoft has also canceled two of its live-service attempts before release: Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Frontline was set to go into beta in 2022, which never happened, and The Division Heartland had a few public tests before being canceled in May this year.
According to reporter Stephen Totilo, the closure involves up to 277 layoffs. Ubisoft has since confirmed that figure. “Half of the XDefiant team worldwide will be transitioning to other roles within Ubisoft,” the company announced. “This decision also leads to the closing of our San Francisco and Osaka production studios and to the ramp down of our Sydney production site, with 143 people departing in San Francisco and 134 people likely to depart in Osaka and Sydney.”
