When XDefiant was first revealed, it was met with a collective roll of the eyes. Not only was it yet another live-service shooter, but came bearing a cringe-inducing attitude that was difficult to stomach. Ubisoft went back into the development mines and returned with a game hoping to bridge its many universes together, allowing characters from Splinter Cell, The Division, Far Cry, and countless other titles to fight against one another as part of different factions.
A cool concept, and with Call of Duty veteran Mark Rubin at the helm, fans were confident it was going to look and play beautifully. And for the most part, it did. I dabbled with XDefiant a bunch during its launch window, progressing through the first season and learning how many of its factions operated. Characters came with unique abilities and movement styles propped up by gunplay that felt fast, fluid, and satisfying. It felt like Call of Duty with a twist, but within a landscape where such games already exist, it never had a chance of standing out.
XDefiant Was Never Going To Stand Out In Today’s World
Earlier this week, Rubin took to Twitter to announce that XDefiant would be closing down as its third season came to an end, with servers set to go offline in June 2025. If you put money into particular premium editions over the past year or so you will be offered a full refund and Ubisoft will walk away to lick yet another fresh wound. What makes this announcement even more painful is that, just a few months earlier, Rubin was defending low player numbers and claimed they were due to a lack of marketing and allowing the team to get the grips with the game they wanted to make before making another big push.
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…
— Mark Rubin (@PixelsofMark)
December 3, 2024
I have no doubt these comments were made in absolute confidence, and Rubin believed in his heart that XDefiant was good enough to sustain an audience and push through its rough opening months. But it wasn’t meant to be, and at some point in the past month or so, a decision was made by Ubisoft executives to cut their losses and close XDefiant down. It was likely too expensive to continue funding a live-service shooter nobody was playing, doubly so in a landscape where the company is already suffering from failures in other areas.
Delaying Assassin’s Creed Shadows after the lukewarm reception to Star War Outlaws is crystal clear proof that Ubisoft understands a need for change if it wants to survive. XDefiant tried to exist in a landscape where some of Ubisoft’s own games like Rainbow Six Siege and For Honor are fighting for attention, not to mention the wider live-service landscape.
It never stood a chance, and much of the development team behind likely saw through the ambitions of executives and shareholders after yet another live-service hit in a world where everybody was already playing games they weren’t going to walk away from. Right now, the big hitters are Fortnite, Apex Legends, Destiny 2, Call of Duty, and a handful of others which have carved out their own dedicated communities. The status quo has long been established, yet so many developers and publishers are so desperate for a slice of the pie that they throw millions of dollars onto the fire only to watch it burn.
Years of development time and so much money was likely spent on XDefiant, only for it to end like this. It sucks, and could have been prevented if we weren’t all obsessed with being the biggest game in the world.
There Isn’t Enough Room For All Of These Live Services
I pray that 2024 will be a breaking point for this industry’s obsession with live-service titles. I believe they have a place, and will be dabbing in Fortnite until the cows come home, but it doesn’t make sense for companies to keep on chasing a dragon they will never catch. The games being created here don’t have artistic merit, only existing to make money and keep our attention for as long as possible. They are finite by design, and hopefully the failure of 2024’s XDefiant, Concord, Suicide Squad, and a very long list of others will teach people the right lessons.
What breaks my heart the most is that so many of these games play and look great, and the developers responsible for bringing them to life did so with the best of intentions. They dove into the fray hoping to create something that mattered within the confines of capitalism, and so much of this work is being cast aside forever because it doesn’t have monetary worth. It was a lost battle the second we started thinking like this, and it will never not hurt to see an enthusiastic creator like Mark Rubin have to reveal the death of a game he did everything in his power to keep alive. XDefiant is more kindling for the fire, and at some point it needs to stop burning.
XDefiant is a competitive online shooter that brings together several IPs under the Ubisoft banner, from Watch Dogs to its many Tom Clancy games.