While Season 2 of XDefiant is now in full swing, there’s been a lot of talk in recent weeks that the future of Ubisoft’s FPS game is rather uncertain. Following a new rumor that claimed it could be axed at the end of its fourth season, XDefiant’s lead dev has come out to strongly deny any and all reports that the game faces being shuttered.
I’ll die on this hill, but at its core, XDefiant is an incredibly enjoyable shooter. Its fast-paced gunplay and map design is reminiscent of some of my favorite Call of Duty titles from the mid-to-late 2010s. Its gunsmith provides just the right level of tinkering without becoming overwhelming and saturated like the one in current CoD games. Its interpretations of Ubisoft’s most popular IP through its classes are also great. However, it’s clear that it’s struggling a bit right now.
This has led to reports that the live service FPS game has been given a deadline to turn its fortunes around and start growing its player base – or face being closed down. Some reports have said Season 3 is the deadline, others have said Season 4, but either way, that’s not much time at all.
However, following the latest variation of this rumor, the game’s executive producer Mark Rubin has taken to X to shut down talk of, well, shutting down.
“To be crystal clear there are NO plans to shut down after Season 4,” he says in a post. “I’ve literally been in meetings as of last week to discuss our Year 2 plans.” Rubin says that right now there has been a lot of effort going into fixing arguably the game’s biggest Achilles’ heel, which is its netcode, and preparing content for Season 3 and 4. He does, however, acknowledge that the game is in a bit of slump right now.
“We have done very little marketing so yes our numbers are down but that is just to give the team the time to get the game in a better place before we do bigger spends on marketing to bring new players to the game and to bring back players that have left,” he explains.
It’s a strategy that doesn’t sound too dissimilar to that of fellow FPS Spectre Divide. The team behind the new 3v3 tactical shooter recently revealed that due to a dip in players after launch, it is now hunkering down to make core improvements and save up marketing budget in order to spread the word hard once those improvements are in the game.
While it’s good to see Rubin dispel these rumors and instill a bit of confidence back into fans, it speaks volumes that the reports about a shutdown still seem rather believable. We know how cutthroat big publishers can be when a live service project doesn’t meet its expectations, and it seems pretty clear XDefiant is missing the mark right now.
I do genuinely hope that efforts to revive the game with tech improvements and loads of great content in Season 3 and 4 work, because I do love XDefiant. However, with the Black Ops 6 release date looming, it will have to try and shout above what looks to be one of the best new COD games in recent years, and that’s a tall order.
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