Ubisoft continues freefall as publisher shutters free-to-play shooter XDefiant, reportedly closing studios

What you need to know

• Ubisoft launched free-to-play first-person shooter XDefiant on May 21, 2024, after years of open and closed testing.
• While the game saw initial success in garnering millions of players, this playerbase quickly collapsed in the months after launch.
• Ubisoft is shutting XDefiant down in 2025, and is barring new players from downloading the game starting Dec. 3, 2024.
• Per Game File's Stephen Totilo, Ubisoft is shuttering its San Francisco and Osaka studios, laying off around 177 employees, with half of the XDefiant team are reportedly being moved to other projects.

It's another dark day for the gaming industry, an event that repeatedly occurs with clockwork precision in recent months.

Ubisoft is shutting down its free-to-play shooter XDefiant, with the game no longer being accessible for new players to download starting Tuesday. Per a message from the game's official X (Twitter) account, XDefiant will remain playable for existing players through June 3, 2025, with the promised Season 3 content still arriving at an unknown point before then.

Per Stephen Totilo of Game File, the bad news doesn't stop there, with Ubisoft closing down the Ubisoft San Francisco and Ubisoft Osaka studios while laying off half of the team that worked on XDefiant, or about 177 employees.

First announced all the way back in 2021, XDefiant went through years of testing before finally launching on May 21, 2024 across Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PlayStation 5. The game was designed as a competitor to Xbox and Activision's Call of Duty franchise.

In our review of XDefiant, my colleague Cole Martin wrote that "Ubisoft's free-to-play first-person arena shooter is less Call of Duty and more Overwatch, but the Snowdrop engine shines even on maps that are way too large for their purpose. Weapon grinds are sluggish, leaving players with more time in the game access to better attachments, while newcomers struggle to even leave their spawns."

The latest blow in a long line of problems for Ubisoft

The closure of XDefiant and the reported shuttering of two development studios is the latest in a long line of problems facing the oft-vaunted publisher. While Ubisoft maintains control of massive franchises like Assassin's Creed and Far Cry, the company continues to face issues, and has canceled dozens of games in the past few years.

Just a few months ago, Ubisoft launched Star Wars Outlaws, a game that managed to get near the top of the U.S. sales charts in August 2024 but was still deemed a disappointment, underperforming the company's expectations. Following the critical success but commercial disappointment of Persia of Persia: The Lost Crown, Ubisoft split the development team up, though at least some of the developers are now reportedly working on a Rayman game.

Ubisoft also delayed Assassin's Creed Shadows, moving what was meant to be its year-ending blockbuster from November 2024 to February 2025. The delay is meant to polish the overall experience, partially in response to player feedback around bugs and glitches in Star Wars Outlaws.

All of this comes as reports indicate Ubisoft could soon be bought in a joint deal between Tencent and the Guillemot family, the latter of which founded Ubisoft decades ago.