Ubisoft and XDefiant Lead Mark Rubin have confirmed that they’ll be shutting down XDefiant and closing the studios behind its development.
XDefiant, the once-hyped free-to-play alternative to Call of Duty, is closing down in 2025. Overseen by Mark Rubin, the producer of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Modern Warfare 3, XDefiant sounded like the perfect shooter on paper. A homage to a bygone era of arena shooters with Ubisoft’s backing, XDefiant aimed to carve out a space for itself by wrangling in players unhappy with the direction modern Call of Duty has gone in. However, despite all that promise, XDefiant was never able to establish itself as a serious competitor and, despite a strong start, was unable to retain players and keep them spending.
Review: XDefiant
Does this mishmash of Ubisoft franchises coalesce into a great FPS experience or is this another trend-chasing game destined to be shut down?
A Year in the Life of XDefiant
XDefiant will officially shut down on July 12, 2025, and, according to Rubin, there will be no new downloads or player registrations available starting today (December 3). Those who purchased the Ultimate Founder’s Pack or made purchases within the last 30 days will receive full refunds. As for future content, Rubin did confirm that the Season 3 content will still roll out in the near future, but no content from the planned future seasons will be released.
The shutdown of XDefiant will have major repercussions for the developers, with about277 employees expected to lose their jobs. Ubisoft also intends on closing the San Francisco and Osaka production studios, though the San Francisco business office will remain open. XDefiant is yet another major loss for a publisher that seems unable to find a major hit. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Skull & Bones, and Star Wars Outlaws all underperformed. Outlaws' performance was so bad thanks to numerous technical issues that Ubisoft delayed Assassin’s Creed Shadows by three months to avoid another embarrassment. XDefiant is another blackeye in a terrible year for the publisher.
What Happened?
XDefiant launched May 21 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC to great promise with 8 million players in its first week. However, the honeymoon phase wouldn’t last long. As noted in our review, XDefiant lacked polish, character, and direction. The game lacked a clear differentiator that made it stand out when compared to Call of Duty outside of a lack of skill-based-matchmaking, something casual Call of Duty players don’t often discuss. It also didn’t help that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III managed to recover from its shaky launch thanks to a plethora of new content from Sledgehammer Games.
XDefiant is another blackeye in a terrible year for the publisher.
According to Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson, Ubisoft had put XDefiant on ‘borrowed time’ through Season 3. Given that the game has been canceled, it does not appear the publisher saw enough of an improvement in Season 2’s numbers to maintain the game.
We’ll let you know should Ubisoft or Mark Rubin make any additional statements about XDefiant.
