Following months of speculation, Ubisoft is closing its shooter XDefiant

Ubisoft has confirmed it’s ending support for its first-person shooter XDefiant, and shutting down its studios in San Francisco and Osaka, Japan, and downsizing in Sydney, Australia.

Following months of denials that the shooter was in trouble, Ubisoft announced on Tuesday it had made “the difficult decision to discontinue development” on XDefiant.

“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,” wrote chief studios officer, Marie-Sophie de Waubert.

“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.”

From today, new downloads, player registrations and purchases will no longer be available for XDefiant, Waubert said. The game’s Season 3 will still launch, and servers will remain active until June 3, 2025.

Almost half of the XDefiant team worldwide will transition to other roles within Ubisoft, the exec claimed, but San Francisco and Osaka production studios will close, and its Sydney production site will ramp down, with 143 people departing in San Francisco and 134 people “likely to depart” in Osaka and Sydney.

XDefiant was released in May for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. VGC’s review of the game called it “a confident shooter that’s far more than a Call of Duty knockoff”.

The game’s first season of live content launched in July, and its second arrived in September, when plans for two further seasons of content were outlined.

On the same day that XDefiant’s second season launched, Ubisoft announced it was delaying Assassin’s Creed Shadows to next year, and said it had initiated a plan to improve Star Wars Outlaws’ fortunes following a disappointing launch.

The French publisher has lost more than half its market value this year, and it was recently claimed that its founders are considering taking the company private with Tencent, which already owns about 10% of the company.

Tuesday’s statement continued: “Developing Games-as-a-Service experiences remains a pillar of our strategy, and we’ve achieved significant successes, like Rainbow Six, The Crew, and For Honor, among others. It’s a highly competitive market, and we will apply the lessons learned with XDefiant to our future live titles.

“Globally, we are determined to take the necessary steps to put the company back on a path to growth, innovation and creativity and make sure we can set you up for success. This means continuing to radically evolve our mindset for Production and Business practices, which we will share more about soon, and doing targeted restructuring when necessary.

“I know that the situation brings questions and expectations, and we will share regular and transparent updates.”