Ubisoft’s XDefiant At Risk of Shutdown Due to Low Player Count

Ubisoft’s XDefiant, which happens to be one of the most unexpected gaming hits of 2024, now stands on the verge of being shelved forever due to the falling player count.

The FPS shooter, which first made its debut back in May, managed to gather a large player base of millions of players in a short time because of the fast-paced action and the unique mechanics it provides.

However, according to an exclusive published by Insider Gaming, the title is now living on ‘borrowed time’ as it struggles to surpass even 20,000 concurrent players over all platforms.

While the studio is trying to push forward a constant stream of additional content for players to enjoy, the fall of XDefiant’s concurrent players is nowhere near the end, and might just soon mark the end of another popular FPS game.

For comparison, when XDefiant first hit the respective platforms, it was able to strike over a million active players within just a couple of hours of releasing, reaching over a player count of 8 million users over the coming week.

The aforementioned article also goes over how more layoffs in Ubisoft’s San Francisco studio might be coming soon, making it harder to create new post-launch content for XDefiant and making it meet its inevitable end.

XDefiant’s Downfall – What Went Wrong

XDefiant’s similar yet somehow unique gameplay along with using known elements from the already established Ubisoft franchises contributed largely to the game’s initial success.

However, despite gathering a large user base in the first few weeks, the traction quickly fell off in the coming weeks. What came next was XDefiant’s Season 1 update, bringing major additions such as new classes and gameplay mechanics, but it was already too late by then.

Ubisoft San Francisco now allegedly has just the duration of XDefiant’s Season 3 to bring the player count back up before the project loses all forms of post-launch support from the decision-makers.