Ubisoft had announced XDefiant in May 2021 of this year as a free-to-play competitor to Activision’s Call of Duty. It enjoyed a very large player base for sometime a steep drop off around July.
Ubisoft shockingly announced that they are planning to shut down XDefiant next year which will result in the closure of 2 production studios, affecting approximately 300 employees. Per their blog post they announced that the game will shut down after season 3 which is around June of 2025.
XDefiant Would’ve Been A Good Competitor To Call of Duty
In terms of game mechanics and characters the roster included members of Ubisoft’s modern franchises who were all grouped into colorful titles such as Cleaners, Phantoms, Echelon, Libertad and Dedsec.
Each of the factions had characters with unique abilities that would make them stand out from the rest of the roster. Each faction also had a unique theme associated with them such as with the Cleaners, all their gadgets and gear had an element of fire with them such as molotovs or dragonfire bullets. Phantoms were more on tank-playstyle end with power ups providing shields and an increase to health.
Echelons were the pick if you wanted to play stealth with abilities akin to that of Sam Fischer from the Splinter Cell series. The Libertads were more on the healer’s side of play with gadgets aimed at health regeneration while the Dedsec were more on the Tactical side as they would disable enemy gadgets and stunning enemies.
Why Is It Shutting Down Then?
It seems the game was hurting for the same reason “The Finals” was just a few short months ago. The player count was quickly dwindling due to lack of new content and issues that were not being addressed fast enough. Yet “The Finals” had bounced back due to them releasing a plethora of new content, weapons and a brand new map to play around in.
The difference here between “The Finals” and XDefiant is that its creators are extremely active in the community to the point they collaborate with other content creators when they are announcing a new season or content. XDefiant simply could not maintain player retention for their game and it seems they didn’t attempt to do so.
Due to not being able to keep players interested they could not compete in the demanding free-to-play landscape that is dominated by games like Apex Legends, Call of Duty Warzone and Fortnite. To be clear, Ubisoft could have and should have done more to maintain player retention, they could’ve ramped up the release of content or collaborated with content creators or streamers to announce new game modes or limited timed events with exclusive rewards.
It’s Not Just The Players Who Are Affected
The shut down of a game means that content that was purchased for the game will be useless in the future which is extremely bad for players. We must also remember that Ubisoft is shutting down two of its production studios along with the game. Ubisoft San Francisco and Osaka studios will be closing its doors immediately while its Sydney office will be slowly winding down its operations.
While it may seem shocking at first that shutting down two studios due the seemingly poor performance of an FPS shooter we must also remember that Ubisoft as a company are going through litigation and facing a ton of backlash for their direction of Assassin’s creed Shadows.
On top of which, last month it leaked that XDefiant would in fact be shut down but it was dismissed by Ubisoft’s Executive Producer Mark Rubin who stressed that it would not be shut down.
Ubisoft could’ve gone down the route of marketing and at least try to appeal to the player base through new content such introducing some Rainbow Six characters to the game or introducing new weapons or characters from their franchises as a season drop. But alas, Ubisoft had to take the most drastic decision which ended up affecting everyone in the process.
