Ubisoft will shut down XDefiant in 2025, after losing faith in the free-to play CoD competitor. 'Many games that are free to play take a very long time to gain traction and become profitable.

The official X account for the game confirmed that XDefiant will be closed by June of next year. According to the announcement, the "sunsetting process" will begin today. However, the promised Season 3 Content will still be rolled-out ahead of the June 3, 2025 D-Day.

New players will no longer be able access XDefiant and existing players will no longer be able make purchases. All purchasers of the Ultimate Founders Pack and all purchases made in the last 30 day will receive a full refund.

Mark Rubin, the Executive Producer of X, acknowledged that free-to-play video games are risky in his statement. "Not only did we want to shake up the genre, by removing Skill Based Matchmaking (SBMM), while bringing back an 'old school' arcade shooter, but we also wanted to dive into the high-risk and high-reward world of free-to play," he wrote. "I want to thank not only the Dev Team but also Ubisoft Leadership for taking this risk.

"Free-to play, in particular is a long road. It takes a while for many free-to-play titles to gain traction and become profitable. Ubisoft, and the teams that worked on the game, were prepared to take a long road until recently. Unfortunately, the journey was too long to continue.

Rubin had previously insisted that XDefiant was "absolutely not dying" following reports of internal discontent over the performance of the game. Ubisoft's track record of supporting its live service titles, such as For Honor and Rainbow Six Siege despite initial difficulties in finding an audience, made it possible to believe that the company would stick with it. Hyperscape was the big exception, a response to the battle royale craze which lasted barely two years.

Concord is the winner in the short-lived GaaS games stakes. Ubisoft also canceled its two live-service attempts prior to release: Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Frontline, which was supposed to go into beta testing in 2022 but never did, and The Division Heartland, which had a few tests before it was canceled in may this year.

According to Stephen Totilo of the reporter Stephen Totilo's, the closure could result in up to 277 layoffs. Ubisoft confirmed this figure. The company announced that "Half the XDefiant worldwide team will be transitioning into other roles within Ubisoft." This decision will also lead to the closure of our San Francisco, Osaka, and Sydney production sites. 143 people in San Francisco are expected to leave and 134 in Osaka or Sydney.