Sad news for online shooter fans: it looks like Ubisoft’s online attempt at a modern shooter title will be taken offline. This comes following Mark Rubin taking to X to dismiss rumours of XDefiant’s demise last month confidently.

To be crystal clear there are NO plans to shut down after season 4. 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…

— Mark Rubin (@PixelsofMark) October 15, 2024

That statement aged like milk. Fast-forward a few weeks, and XDefiant’s closure is now official. While Rubin’s optimism was clear, it highlights just how fast things can change in the live-service gaming world, especially when player retention doesn’t meet expectations or when the numbers don’t justify the continued investment.

XDefiant, the 2024-released free-to-play online first-person shooter, will be shutting down on 3rd June 2025 according to executive producer Mark Rubin. Starting right now on 4th December, new downloads and player registrations will no longer be available. Players who bought the Ultimate Founder’s Pack and bought anything within the last 30 days will be getting a full refund.

While XDefiant officially came out on May 2024, the game went through public beta test sessions in June of 2023 and September of 2023. The shooter offered a variety of factions and classes, removed skill-based matchmaking, and brought back the “old school” approach to first-person shooters with modern trappings. Regardless of the intent, it’s tough to take down its biggest competitor: the Call of Duty series with Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 being the latest iteration and Warzone being the free-to-play live service version of the series.

Check out the rest of the sad announcement below:

A few years ago, Ubisoft and the SF Dev 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 (SBMM) 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 Dev 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 5 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.

Critical Look at XDefiant’s Struggles & Closure

Our resident arena-FPS head Lewis shared his perspective on the game’s closure. For him, the news was disheartening but not entirely unexpected. He pointed out how Black Ops 6, which launched just a month ago, has already shattered records and set new standards for the Call of Duty franchise. XDefiant had a similarly impressive start, but as Lewis noted in his review, the game still had a long way to go. Sadly, it seems we’ll never witness it reach its full potential.

Lewis highlighted the harsh realities of the live-service market: from a business standpoint if a title fails to consistently attract new players, it quickly becomes unsustainable. Ubisoft, being a AAA studio, simply couldn’t afford to wait for a turnaround without concrete results.

He also reflected on where XDefiant stumbled. While the game served as a nostalgic love letter to classic Call of Duty titles, it ultimately couldn’t compete with the polish and gameplay fluidity of Black Ops 6. After spending hundreds of hours on Treyarch’s latest, Lewis observed how the game just clicks—a seamless experience that embodies the studio’s legacy of success. Despite XDefiant’s team of veteran developers, it seems they couldn’t recreate that same magic formula.

You can check out Lewis’ Push To Talk episode speaking about XDefiant when it was initially released below: