According to several sources, XDefiant's developers, Ubisoft San Francisco, have until the end of the 3rd in-game season to improve the number of players in the game, otherwise the game will be closed. This was reported by Insider Gaming.
XDefiant was released in May this year and was quite successful. In the first 2.5 hours, the game gathered 1 million unique players (a record for Ubisoft), and in the first week - more than 8 million players. Ubisoft was delighted with the game's success and even said in a press release that XDefiant's revenue contributed to its financial success in the first quarter of 2024.
But now the game is steadily losing players. In addition, the management is not satisfied with the low number of in-game purchases - those who play do not buy anything in the game. Therefore, the developers were given a condition to increase the number of players by the end of the third season.
It is reported that the goal is 20,000 simultaneous players on all platforms, meaning that the game does not even have this figure now. The decline in the number of players has created tension and anxiety within the team, and the developers expect massive layoffs.
Earlier this month, Ubisoft cut 45 jobs in some of its offices, with about ten of them actively working on XDefiant, and even more studio employees losing their jobs due to the cutbacks in the Rocksmith+ guitar simulator.
The first season of the game began on July 2, and the second season will start on September 24. That means the end of the third season can be expected in February 2025. Well, we hope that the first Ubisoft game with Ukrainian localization will do well.