Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot failed to provide any details on XDefiant after previously promising investors he would do so.
A screenshot from XDefiant (2024), Ubisoft
Back in September, Guillemot and Ubisoft revealed that it was lowering its second quarter revenue expectations by 30% from €500 million to €350-370 million due to soft sales for Star Wars Outlaws and XDefiant.
During a Trading Update call, Guillemot was asked, by Nicholas Langlet of BNP Paribas, ““So the Q2 guidance … is it only Star Wars Outlaws or is there something else underperforming in the portfolio?”
Guillemot responded, “It mostly reflects the softer than expected sales for Star Wars Outlaws. We also had behind expectations for XDefiant, which we will give you a bit more detail at the end of October.”
A screenshot from XDefiant (2024), Ubisoft
In its First-Half 2024-2025 Earnings Figures report, Ubisoft revealed that its net bookings only clocked in at €352.3 million for the second quarter. And while the report shared updates on Star Wars Outlaws and Assassin’s Creed Shadows and Rainbow Six Siege, it did not mention XDefiant other than the game’s third season will arrive in the third quarter between October and December 2024.
During the Earnings Conference Call, one investor did ask Guillemot about the game, “You don’t mention XDefiant much in the release, how should we think about that? It’s obviously tailed off. Is this just another example or another case of this just not working, the games-as-a-service, sort of free-to-play variant? I know Rainbow Six is obviously incredibly successful, but should we chalk XDefiant up as another miss?”
Guillemot responded, “As we said a month ago, XDefiant is behind our expectations but the team is working and focusing on improving the heat registration element and improving the net code. And that is really the priority as we speak. Our games-as-a-service strategy remains core of what we want to do next. … Free-to-play games-as-service remains a core element of our [inaudible] strategy to the benefit of our big brands in the coming years.”
Key art for XDefiant (2024), Ubisoft
Rumors have swirled that the game is not doing well. At the end of August, Tom Henderson at Insider Gaming reported that the XDefiant was seeing “continuously declining player numbers and lack of player spending.”
He reported that one source informed him that “the game has been struggling to obtain 20,000 concurrent players across all its platforms.”
Another source shared, “They [Ubisoft] would probably be happy with that number.” This suggests that the concurrent player number counts are much lower than 20,000.
In fact, Henderson also shared that if the game does not turn things around by Season 3 it “risks losing its much-needed post-launch support.”
A screenshot from XDefiant (2024), Ubisoft
READ: Rumor: Ubisoft To End Support Of ‘XDefiant’ After Season 4 If It Does Not Increase Its Player Base
Following Henderson’s report, Ubisoft addressed it in a blog post in the middle of September. The game’s Executive Producer Marc Rubin stated at the time, “I just want to quickly address the status of the game. i.e. is the game dying? No, the game is absolutely not dying.”
He elaborated, “We know there are things we need to improve like Netcode/Hitreg and adding more content to progression, but the game is doing well. We just want it to do better.”
“And we do that by addressing the concerns of our community which has always been the plan. Ubisoft is very much behind us and has allocated more resources to the team in order for us to do that,” he stated.
To that point he revealed the game’s Year 1 roadmap which ends with Season 4.
XDefiant’s Year 1 Roadmap
However, earlier this month another rumor cropped up claiming that Ubisoft might cut support following Season 4 if cannot increase its player counts.
Just4Leaks2 shared on X, “XDefiant is alredy Dead. Ubisoft research team is actively asking their tester to have another In-House test session and give/repeat their feedback.
He added, “Multiple sources told that its possible that the game will end its Support after season 4 if they cant get enough players.”
just4leaks2 on X
Rubin addressed this rumor on X writing, “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.”
He continued, “But, right now we are super focused on improving the technical experience (which includes netcode) and adding more content for Seasons 3 & 4.”
However, he then admitted that player numbers are down, “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.”
Mark Rubin on X
Rubin’s revelation appeared to confirm speculation from Sean Carey at True Achievements who noted the game had fallen out of its Most Popular Xbox Games chart, which is based off a 2.4 million random sample of Xbox accounts.
Carey noted that the game debuted in fifth on the charts back in May and even moved up to 4th before it slowly fell down the charts over the next 12 weeks. He noted, “the XDefiant Xbox player count has dropped an incredible 94%, and the shooter now sits in 81st place in our latest chart.” That was back in the middle of September.
A screenshot from XDefiant (2024), Ubisoft
What do you make of Guillemot not delivering on his promise to provide an update on XDefiant?
