X no longer giving it to you as XDefiant announces its shutting down

Ubisoft have announced that XDefiant, their free to play shooter that released back in June 2024, will be closing down.

Anyone who purchased the Ultimate Founders Pack, they will get a full refund and anyone who made a purchase in the past 30 days, will also get a refund. The games servers will remain up until June 3, 2025 but there will be no new players allowed in. That means players who have the game downloaded to their platform of choice can enjoy the game until next year, but no one else can.

There will still be a third season of content coming to the game, the exact date is not yet known, but given most seasons have a 3 month cycle, I would imagine early 2025 for this final season.

Finally there is a very long message from Mark Rubin, the Executive Producer of the game, which you can read below. Sadly XDefiant never got the players it was hoping for, we reviewed the game and found it to be quite a bad time.

Hello XDefiant fans,

I am unfortunately here today to announce that XDefiant will be shutting down.

Starting today (December 3, 2024), new downloads and player registrations will no longer be available. We will still release our Season 3 content in the near future (exact date to be determined) and the servers will remain active until June 3, 2025.

For those who purchased the Ultimate Founder’s Pack, you’ll receive a full refund. Players who made any purchases within the last 30 days will also be fully refunded. Those refunds should happen automatically within 8 weeks of today and you can find more details on our official website, XDefiant.com.

A few years ago, Ubisoft and the [San Francisco] development team embarked on a bold adventure to develop a new arcade shooter called XDefiant. It was from the start, an incredible challenge. Not only were we trying to shake up the genre by removing Skill-Based Matchmaking while bringing back a more “old-school” arcade shooter experience, but we were also diving into the high-risk, high-reward realm of free-to-play. And for that I want to applaud not only the development team but also Ubisoft leadership for taking that chance!

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.

I am, of course, heartbroken to have to be writing this post. Yes, this game has been a personal passion for me for years and yes, I know that not all challenges lead to victory, but I also want to recognize all of the developers who are being affected by this closure. Each and every one of them is a real person with a real life separate from our own and they have all put so much of their own passion into making this game. And I hope that they can be proud of what they did achieve. I know that I will always be proud and grateful to have worked with such a great team! A team that really punched above its weight class.

And what they achieved is truly remarkable. The early response from players when XDefiant launched was amazing—we broke internal records for the fastest game to surpass five million users and in the end we had over 15 million players play our game! That is something to be extremely proud of, especially considering how tough this genre is. So, thank you to all of the developers who put their passion into making this game!

If there’s one thing, I hope we can all take away from this experience, it’s the importance of open, honest communication between developers and players. This “player-first” mentality along with respectful, non-toxic conversations between developers and players has been one of the standout differences that made XDefiant so special. From my very first post about XDefiant, this was the vision I wanted to champion, and I hope it leaves a positive mark on how the game industry treats its players and communities.

To our players, THANK YOU! From the bottom of my heart, I want to express my deepest gratitude for the incredible community that has grown around XDefiant. Your passion, creativity, and dedication have inspired us every step of the way.

With the utmost of love and respect,
Mark Rubin, Executive Producer