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 has reportedly failed to live up to the publisher’s expectations – with Ubisoft giving the team until Season 3 to “turn things around.”
As reported by InsiderGaming, the publication spoke to a number of xDefiant’s developers at Ubisoft San Fransisco, revealing that the current internal sentiment surrounding the game and its performance is lower than expected/needed. It is claimed that xDefiant has been struggling to maintain a concurrent user base of 20,000 players – a figure which as stated by one dev “They [Ubisoft] would probably be happy with.”
The current state of xDefiant has left the Ubisoft San Francisco team with an ultimatum, as “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.”
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.