According to several sources at Ubisoft, Ubisoft San Francisco has until the end of Season 3 of XDefiant to improve the game’s bleak player numbers.
XDefiant was all the buzz when it launched in May 2024. The game exceeded 1 million unique players in its first 2.5 hours (a Ubisoft record) and exceeded over 8 million players in its first week. Executives were thrilled at the title’s future and even reported in the company’s latest press release that XDefiant revenue contributed to its Q1 2025 financial success. But now, just six weeks from its Q1 financial report, Ubisoft HQ wants player numbers to increase by Season 3, or XDefiant risks losing its much-needed post-launch support.
Internally, optimism for the game has shifted primarily due to the game’s continuously declining player numbers and lack of player spending. One source told me that the game has been struggling to obtain 20,000 concurrent players across all its platforms, whereas another said, “They [Ubisoft] would probably be happy with that number,” suggesting that it’s now much lower. The declining numbers have created tension and anxiety within the team, with sources who spoke to me believing that more layoffs are only a matter of time.
It’s not like Ubisoft San Francisco isn’t already feeling the pressure, either. Earlier this month, Ubisoft cut 45 jobs at its San Francisco, California, and North Carolina offices, with around ten actively working on XDefiant and even more at the studio losing their jobs due to Rocksmith+ scaling down.
Frustrations within the studio are aimed at the leadership, who have refused to take responsibility for the project’s shortcomings, which could have been avoided with a better studio culture. In late March 2024, I reported on the studio’s toxic work culture, and despite an internal investigation that concluded last month, I was told that the issues had been swept under the rug and that its problems were still prevalent.
As for XDefiant’s future, leadership is betting all their money on Season 3 to turn things around, but with Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 set to release between Season 2 and Season 3, those I spoke to are feeling pessimistic about the game’s future. One source even went as far as to say, “Expect more Ubisoft San Fran layoff headlines within six months.”
If you work or have worked at Ubisoft San Francisco or any other Ubisoft studios recently, you can email me anonymously and securely at [email protected]
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Tom Henderson is Insider Gaming's Co-Founder and Editor-In-Chief. When he's not running one of the industry's leading independent video game websites, he's probably playing an FPS like Call of Duty,…
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The aiming on controller never felt great, which I can’t say is the case for any other fps I’ve played. There were so many people had this issue, but the studio head was convinced we merely needed to tweak our aim settings more.
I’m not surprised the game isn’t doing well.
Sad thing that they had to use the Snowdrop engine for this project, first ever FPS game made with it. (Don’t think the stuff used for The Division was anything more than a starting-point for a massive amount of work trying to develop it alongside the game.
Going from the first beta and to the game, even after 12 months, I couldn’t tell if it was the same or worse.
Personally, I don’t find it to be *that* bad, but it would still be my main criticism of the game so far. I bought the battle pass for the game, but didn’t even bother to finish it because the grind was super tedious, and the skins aren’t more than simple solid colors with a few variations.
The devs have to dripfeed content like maps, balance and less “game-breaking” stuff to work on the netcode. I hope they get the time and manage to “fix” the netcode and still be able to work on the game after. The first beta was in August 2021 and I honest to god feel like the netcode isn’t very much better as of writing.
Man I love this game and want them to succeed, But all of this + no marketing + new COD soon that seems to be actually good? Won’t be getting my hopes up sadly
I’m still ready to leave COD for XD. Problem is they’ve yet to implement a Free For All mode which was promised to be included after launch. The game has had the Season 1 update with new modes nobody was asking for while the absolute fundamental baseline mode FFA is still not included.
As someone who hates team play and gets bored with objective modes the promised FFA was the main reason (besides no SBMM/EOMM) that I picked up XD. The gameplay proves XD can be awesome but without FFA I can’t commit. I stopped playing it like a month ago and just check in every few days to see if FFA is here yet.
Meanwhile I’m stuck with COD’s BS manipulated gameplay because it, at least, has FFA.