Ubisoft Shuts Down XDefiant, Game Producer Leaves Industry

Ubisoft, which has repeatedly tried to create a competitor to popular shooters like Fortnite and Call of Duty, suffered another failure - the servers of its free-to-play project XDefiant were turned off on June 4. Despite the developers' assurances that the game was developing according to plan and that players liked it, a mass outflow of the audience began just a few months after the release. According to rumors, the studio gave the team an ultimatum: increase the number of players, otherwise the project would be closed. As a result, the game could not retain its audience and was stopped.



XDefiant producer Mark Rubin, who previously worked on the Call of Duty series, announced his departure from the gaming industry, effectively putting an end to the history of the unsuccessful project. He revealed the key problems that led to the failure: the main one was the choice of the Snowdrop engine, which was not originally intended for online shooters. Due to its limitations, the developers were unable to properly optimize the network code, which led to problems for players with unstable Internet. In addition, adapting the engine for a first-person shooter required too many resources, which is why the team could not release enough content to maintain the audience's interest. As a result, the project turned out to be unviable and was closed.