Ubisoft sunsets first-person shooter XDefiant due to unprofitability

Ubisoft has officially sunset XDefiant, a new free-to-play shooter that failed to meet internal expectations.

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The reports were right: Ubisoft's FPS XDefiant was indeed struggling, and Ubisoft has ultimately made the decision to pull the plug on the game. The game is now in its winding down phase. XDefiant is no longer available to download, and gamers can't make new user registrations or purchase items. The servers will remain online until June 2025, though, which essentially transforms the game into a big private beta.

"Thank you for your incredible support and dedication to XDEFIANT. We regret to inform you that we are initiating the sunset process starting today, December 3, 2024.

"As a result, new downloads, player registrations and purchases will no longer be available. Season 3 will still launch. The servers will remain active, and the game will be fully playable until June 3rd, 2025," the game's official Twitter account posted today.

"For those who purchased the Ultimate Founders Pack, you will receive a full refund. Players who made any purchases within the last 30 days will also be fully refunded."

The news comes just weeks after Ubisoft admitted that XDefiant wasn't living up to the publisher's internal performance metrics.

XDefiant's executive producer Mark Rubin further indicates that XDefiant just wasn't popular enough to turn a profit at a rate that Ubisoft approved of.

"Free-to-play, in particular, is a long journey. Many free-to-play games take a long time to find their footing and become profitable. It's a long journey that Ubisoft and the teams working on the game were prepared to make until very recently. But unfortunately, the journey became too much to sensibly continue."

Rubin goes on to confirm that XDefiant attracted a total of 15 million players:

"The early response from players when XDefiant launched was amazing-we broke internal records for the fastest game to surpass 5 million users and in the end we had over 15 million players play our game!"