Ubisoft
Ubisoft is shutting down XDefiant less than a year from its debut, as well as three whole studios
Another live-service effort by Ubisoft is about to see its end, as XDefiant is getting shut down less than a year after its launch.
On October 15, the executive producer of XDefiant assured that the rumors were not true and that the game would not close after the fourth season’s premiere. He was somewhat correct, as it will be after only the third season. Mark Rubin did acknowledge that they had done little marketing and that the numbers were low, but he noted that the intention was to prepare the game so that this situation would be reversed before investing more money in advertising. In the end, the efforts were in vain.
Ubisoft itself announced the news in a statement published on its official website, signed by Marie-Sophie de Waubert, head of studios. Likewise, it confirms the closure of Ubisoft San Francisco, Osaka, and Sydney.
“Today, I wanted to share with you that we’ve made the difficult decision to discontinue development on XDefiant”, begins the announcement, originally shared internally at the studio before being released. “Despite an encouraging start, the team’s passionate work, and a committed fan base, we’ve 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. As a result, the game is too far away from reaching the results required to enable further significant investment, and we are announcing that we will be sunsetting it.”
Starting today, the game will stop “new downloads and player registration”, while purchases are no longer available. The third season will be released and the servers will remain active until June 3, 2025.
More than 200 workers laid off: goodbye to Ubisoft San Francisco, Osaka and Sydney
Ubisoft has been in a very complicated situation for months, so the leaks about its possible sale have done nothing but worsen the situation. For now, management has announced the closure of Ubisoft San Francisco, the creators of XDefiant. The Osaka and Sydney studios will also say goodbye: “Even if almost half of the XDefiant team worldwide will be transitioning to other roles within Ubisoft, 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.”
Despite this new failure in the field of free-to-play, Ubisoft has stated that they will continue working on games as a service, since they consider Rainbow Six, The Crew, and For Honor to have achieved “significant successes.” They promise that they will apply the lessons learned in XDefiant for future titles.
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