XDefiant is Shutting Down

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home December 4, 2024 56 Views 6 Min Read
XDefiant is Shutting Down



Key Takeaways

  • XDefiant will be shut down on June 3, 2025.
  • Season 3 content will still be released, but new downloads and registrations are unavailable.
  • Refunds will be issued to Ultimate Founder’s Pack owners automatically.



Mark Rubin, executive producer of Ubisoft’s first-person shooter XDefiant, has confirmed that the game will be shut down next year. XDefiant was released in May 2024, and positioned itself as a true Call of Duty competitor, although it hasn’t quite worked out for the live-service title.

Upon XDefiant‘s launch earlier this year, the game came in for plenty of praise from FPS fans. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it represented a fun new player in the casual shooter market. The free-to-play game was met with 1 million unique players within two hours of release, becoming the fastest Ubisoft game to hit the milestone. However, even as the updates for the game continued, player numbers dwindled in the subsequent months. By October, rumors were already swirling about the possibility of XDefiant shutting down, although nothing at that point was substantiated.


xdefiant cod shutdown

Related
Ironically, The Final Nail in XDefiant’s Coffin Could Come From Its Biggest Competitor

The future of Ubisoft’s XDefiant now seems to be an uncertain one, and the final blow could come from its largest competitor in a cruel twist of fate.

Now, in a statement on X, XDefiant‘s executive producer, Mark Rubin, has confirmed the sad news that the game will be shut down. The servers will remain active until June 3, 2025, although new downloads and player registrations for XDefiant are no longer available, effective immediately. Despite the shutdown, all of XDefiant‘s content for Season 3 will still be released, although dates for this are yet to be revealed. Any gamer who purchased the Ultimate Founder’s Pack will receive a full refund, as will any player who made a purchase within the last 30 days. According to Rubin, “Those refunds should happen automatically within 8 weeks of today.”


XDefiant is Shutting Down on June 3, 2025


XDefiant represents another high-profile live-service game struggling to find its feet in an incredibly competitive market. Concord springs to mind, which was shut down a few weeks after its launch earlier this year. According to Rubin, while “many free-to-play games take a long time to find their footing and become profitable,” this was a “journey that Ubisoft and the teams working on the game were prepared to make until very recently.” However, “the journey became too much to sensibly continue,” leading to the shutdown decision.

The journey to this point has been long for Ubisoft San Francisco. XDefiant was first announced back in 2021, yet has been confirmed for shutdown just seven months after its launch. It’s a sad reminder of how difficult the live-service market is to truly break into, especially in a gaming sphere dominated by games like Call of Duty and Fortnite.

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