XDefiant is Shutting Down
I played the beta test for XDefiant back in 2023 – you can see my first impressions here. I wasn’t particularly kind in my review, as I found the game underwhelming.
Despite initial hype – with around 3 million players trying the beta – Ubisoft went silent for two months. When the game finally launched in 2024, it reported 10 million players over its first two weeks. But now, barely a year later, XDefiant is shutting down. The game has already been delisted, with servers scheduled to go offline in June 2025. Ubisoft has offered refunds for certain purchases and for items bought within the last 30 days, suggesting all in-game sales will be suspended.
When someone mentioned the shutdown to me recently, my first reaction was: That game actually came out? I couldn’t even remember playing it until I looked it up. That alone says everything: the game lacked any lasting identity. Its name and branding felt generic, like a shooter from a decade ago. I’m still surprised Ubisoft didn’t use the Rainbow Six branding to leverage an existing fan base. Oddly, while it avoided Rainbow Six in its name, XDefiant borrowed character factions from Ubisoft’s other franchises, including Far Cry, Watch Dogs, and Tom Clancy titles.
The Fallout
Ubisoft announced the shutdown alongside news of studio closures and layoffs. Two of the primary studios behind XDefiant – Ubisoft San Francisco and Ubisoft Osaka – are closing, resulting in 143 and 134 layoffs, respectively. Ubisoft’s Sydney office is also downsizing.
This game was supposed to be Ubisoft’s big entry into the live service genre, positioned as a direct competitor to Call of Duty. But it’s clear Ubisoft miscalculated. The company has faced a string of lacklustre releases and financial struggles, and XDefiant became another failure in its growing list of missteps.
Revisiting XDefiant
I revisited XDefiant, and to its credit, it’s more polished than it was during the beta. However, key issues remain, the biggest being its lack of progression. There’s nothing to keep players coming back.
Shotguns still feel heavy and clunky compared to the smooth handling of assault rifles. The maps are vibrant, but the overly dark character designs hurt visibility. While Ubisoft has made slight improvements in this area, it’s still not where it needs to be.
The map design follows the arcade-style formula of Call of Duty. A standout feature is that weapons and attachments are not locked behind progression; everything is available from the start. This is a refreshing change from grind-heavy systems, but it’s also a double-edged sword. Without progression hooks, there’s little incentive to keep playing. The game’s basic daily challenges and camo unlocks tied to levelling feel like afterthoughts.
If XDefiant had launched in 2023 with its current polish, it might have stood a better chance. But the delays and absence of essential features at release doomed it. To me, it feels like a carbon copy of Call of Duty – well-executed but saddled with the same flaws. It’s a fast time-to-kill game with restricted movement and map design, seemingly tailored to make casual players feel good.
Lessons Not Learned
Ubisoft’s belief that XDefiant could rival Call of Duty was naive. Call of Duty’s free-to-play offering is a global juggernaut, consistently among the top five games. Once again, it’s the lower-level developers – not the executives who made these decisions – paying the price for failure.
Live service games can be incredibly profitable, but success demands a long-term vision, a steady content pipeline, and robust management. Ubisoft seemed to skip these steps, relying on a few beta weekends and a delayed launch. The lack of basic content at release was shocking.
This shutdown echoes Concord, Sony’s live service shooter, which was cancelled just two weeks after its October 2024 launch. At least Ubisoft can claim XDefiant lasted longer. But it’s frustrating to see publishers repeatedly chase trends without learning from past mistakes.
A Broken Industry Model
The deeper issue lies in the rising costs of game development, which have fostered a risk-averse, short-term mindset. This stifles creativity, leading to fewer new games, longer development cycles, and an overreliance on updates for existing titles.
Perhaps the solution is to balance smaller, experimental projects with a few major releases every couple of years, alongside a single well-supported live service game.
The gaming industry’s COVID-era boom is over, and many studios are scrambling to adapt. Until the industry rethinks how games are planned, developed, and released, we’ll continue to see more XDefiants: trend-chasing projects burdened by mismanagement and poor execution.
A Missed Opportunity for Preservation
One final frustration is that XDefiant will not be preserved. Game preservation is crucial, and it’s a shame Ubisoft didn’t consider making the game open source or revamping its assets to avoid IP conflicts. Instead, it’s being written off as a tax loss – another casualty of corporate thinking.
Preserving games, even flawed ones, matters for gaming history. Sadly, XDefiant will soon be forgotten, a fate it could have avoided.