The list of games that have underperformed for Ubisoft from a commercial perspective has grown increasingly long over the last couple of years, and XDefiant has been one of the more prominent additions to that list in 2024. Launching earlier this year after a long line of delays, the free-to-play first-person shooter seemed to get off to a positive start, but with persisting issues and a bleeding playerbase, speculation regarding its future has grown increasingly rampant.
According to executive producer Mark Rubin, however, players have nothing to fear. Though some recent reports have claimed that XDefiant has failed to impress Ubisoft and is set to be shut down after the end of its fourth season, Rubin has taken to Twitter to dispel those rumours, stating that the development team is currently focused on improving the game’s core technical experience, and that planning is already underway for what will come next after Season 4. That, as per Rubin, will also entail more aggressive marketing down the line, as Ubisoft attempts to both capture new players and entice lapsed ones to hop back in.
“To be crystal clear, there are NO plans to shut down after season 4,” Rubin wrote “I’ve literally been in meetings as of last week to discuss our Year 2 plans. But, right now we are super focused on improving the technical experience (which includes netcode) and adding more content for Seasons 3 and 4. We have done very little marketing so yes our numbers are down but that is just to give the team the time to get the game in a better place before we do bigger spends on marketing to bring new players to the game and to bring back players that have left.”
XDefiant is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Its currently in its second season of post-launch content, which kicked off last month.
