With all the focus being placed on Concord recently — and its increasingly apparent failings — you'd be forgiven for forgetting about XDefiant, the Ubisoft shooter that launched on PS5 back in May. The live service title was met with decent reviews and actually seemed to be doing really well for itself at first, racking up some big player numbers.
However, we're now several months down the line, and word on the street is that the game's fallen off a cliff. Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson — who has a stellar track record when it comes to all things Ubisoft — reports that XDefiant is basically on the brink of being canned, unless its player count sees significant growth through the game's third season.
Supposedly, said player count has been in steady decline since that impressively positive launch period. Fewer and fewer players means less and less spending, and so Ubisoft's struggling to justify continued support. Reportedly, XDefiant — which is free-to-play, it should be noted — is barely hitting 20,000 concurrent players across all platforms. That's PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X|S.
Some sources have told Henderson that it's probably only a matter of time until layoffs occur at Ubisoft San Francisco. The article goes on to say that the studio's "toxic" work culture — which was reported on ahead of XDefiant's launch — is apparently still an issue. It all sounds rather bleak.