XDefiant producer says ‘there are no plans to shut down after season 4’

XDefiant executive producer Mark Rubin has denied claims that Ubisoft could close the game after its first year of content.

“To be crystal clear there are NO plans to shut down after season 4,” he wrote on X on Tuesday, seemingly in response to comments published on the social media platform earlier this week.

On Monday, an X user by the name of Shaun Weber, who calls himself a “game developer who knows some people” and whose handle is @just4leaks2, claimed to have heard from multiple sources that XDefiant could close after its fourth season if Ubisoft fails to attract more players.

“I’ve literally been in meetings as of last week to discuss our Year 2 plans,” Rubin said today. “But, right now we are super focused on improving the technical experience (which includes netcode) and adding more content for Seasons 3 & 4.

“We have done very little marketing so yes our numbers are down but that is just to give the team the time to get the game in a better place before we do bigger spends on marketing to bring new players to the game and to bring back players that have left,” he went on to claim.

It’s the second time in a month that developer Ubisoft San Francisco has denied claims that the free-to-play shooter’s days could be numbered.

“No, the game is absolutely not dying,” it said in September, following reports that there’s been a sharp drop in interest in the live service game, contributing to a significant decline in Ubisoft’s share price.

“We know there are things we need to improve like Netcode/Hitreg and adding more content to progression, but the game is doing well.

“We just want it to do better. And we do that by addressing the concerns of our community which has always been the plan.

“Ubisoft is very much behind us and has allocated more resources to the team in order for us to do that,” the studio said.

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.