Ubisoft announced it is “initiating the sunset process” for its free-to-play online mulitplayer shooter XDefiant. In other words, XDefiant is being shut down.
The process has started on December 3, where the game stops taking on new players anymore, and any DLC and microtransaction currency purchases have been disabled.
Game servers will be active until June 3, 2205.
Rather awkwardly, Season 3 will still launch. The remaining player base will still get new content as the game’s last hurrah.
Players who purchased the Ultimate Founders pack will get a full refund.
Players who purchased any DLC or microtransaction since November 3, 2024 will also be refunded. Purchases from before November 3 cannot be refunded.
XDefiant had a rather murky pre-launch build-up. It was first revealed as Tom Clancy’s XDefiant, but instead of having a tacticool aesthetic since it’s bringing all the different factions from the many Tom Clancy games, it has this punk rock vibe which clashes in a bad way. The game later dropped the Tom Clancy name, and introduced more factions from other Ubisoft titles, and moved away from the colourful punk rock look.
XDefiant was billed as a Call Of Duty killer, in that development team was lead by ex-Infinity Ward Mark Rubin, and feature the fast-paced shooting similar to the juggernaut franchise. Alas, like any so-called “_ killers”, it never reached their target. XDefiant launched on May 21, and will only be operating for a year before shutting down.
What’s more harrowing is that developer Ubisoft San Francisco and Ubisoft Osaka will be shutting down, with Ubisoft Sydney being ramped down. Game File’s Stephen Totilo reports the studio closure affected 277 people. These folks are being laid off right before the holidays.