Ubisoft confirms that XDefiant has fallen “behind expectations”

Following a lengthy development/beta period, Ubisoft’s arcadey multiplayer First Person Shooter xDefiant finally launched back in May to a great deal of interest. Despite amassing over 10 million players in under two weeks, the game reportedly failed to live up to the publisher’s expectations. Though they previously denied the reports, Ubisoft has now confirmed that the free-to-play shooter has fallen “behind expectations.”

In the wake of a report claiming that medium-term engagement with Ubisoft’s XDefiant had fallen below expectations, the development team at Ubisoft San Francisco stated otherwise.

From the horse’s mouth however, we now have official confirmation of the game’s struggles, with Ubisoft’s founder/CEO Yves Guillemot stating during a recent Trading Call Update that the current financial state of the company:

“mostly reflects the softer-than-expected sales for Star Wars Outlaws,” but added that “We also had behind expectations for XDefiant, which we will give you a bit more detail at the end of October. To a much lesser extent, with a limited impact was a lower expectation for XDefiant.”

According to the aforementioned leaks/reports, XDefiant has until Season 3 to turn the ship around, at which point the game could cease to exist if they fail to do so.

xDefiant is in no way a bad game and could certainly find its own niche as a hybrid between the likes of Call of Duty, Overwatch and Valorant/Counter Strike. Unfortunately, it seems as though the team may not have enough time to amass such an audience. We will have to wait and see how Season 3 is received.

KitGuru says: Have you been enjoying xDefiant? What can they do to grow the game further? Let us know your thoughts down below.

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