XDefiant was released in May 2024, but has since revealed an uncertain future.
When Ubisoft announced the free2play shooter XDefiant in July 2021, few people suspected that it would take almost three more years until the release. Many people already hailed the game as a “CoD killer” in previews and beta phases, and the launch in May 2024 was indeed a real success.
In the first week, XDefiant had almost 8 million players, and Season 1 brought additional content such as a new faction into the game at the beginning of July. Is everything good? Not really. Because, as Insider Gaming reports, the initial internal enthusiasm at Ubisoft about the title has noticeably cooled down.
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XDefiant – Overview trailer for season 1 shows what you can expect
XDefiant has fewer and fewer players – now there is apparently an ultimatum
The main reason for the diet is the rapidly declining number of players in the shooter. As the website learned from an internal source, XDefiant currently does not even manage 20,000 simultaneous players on the servers.
And that has apparently even led to an ultimatum. As Insider Gaming writes, the XDefiant team has until the end of Season 3 to massively increase the number of players.
Otherwise, the shooter, which started with so many ambitions, is apparently in danger of being canceled. According to Insider Gaming, this sword of Damocles is understandably causing tension and pressure on the team, who are also said to be disappointed with Ubisoft's management.
The company had not taken responsibility for the problems during development and, moreover, had concluded an investigation into toxic work culture without any results – thereby covering up obvious problems.
Little chance against the big names
There is obviously something wrong with XDefiant and the shooter seems to be facing an uncertain future. But the case also shows once again that it is very difficult to survive in the multiplayer shooter market dominated by a few big names. And that the “CoD killer” label has done the game more harm than good.
XDefiant combines fictional organizations and locations from various Tom Clancy titles. Players embody so-called Defiants, who can join factions from various games such as the Wolves from Ghost Recon, Echelon from Splinter Cell, or the Cleaners from The Division.
Do you still play XDefiant?
