Underperforming XDefiant Pours More Misery on Embattled Publisher Ubisoft

When it rains, it pours

by · Push Square

Ubisoft is going through something of a sticky patch, with Assassin’s Creed Shadows getting delayed and Star Wars Outlaws underperforming. Now boss Yves Guillemot has admitted what many suspected: first-person shooter XDefiant is also falling short of the French publisher’s targets.

Speaking as part of an investors meeting, the bigwig said: “We had behind expectations for XDefiant, which we will give you a bit more detail at the end of October. To a much lesser extent [than Star Wars Outlaws], with a limited impact was a lower expectation for XDefiant.”

Ubisoft had previously said XDefiant was “off to an encouraging start”, but there had been reports the game had been struggling to maintain players. Insider Gaming claimed the development team had until the end of Season 3 to turn things around, but in a subsequent statement it said the title is “absolutely not dying”.

It seems that the big challenge for Ubisoft is getting players to open their wallets, as while there’s been an uptick in players with recent updates, very few are coughing up their cash. As a free-to-play shooter, player retention is a big deal – but it means little if they aren’t actually spending any money.

Related Articles

Rumour Ubisoft Live Service Shooter XDefiant on Brink of Being Shut Down

Just three months after launch

It’ll be interesting to see what happens here. Better games than XDefiant have ended up getting cancelled, so it’s going to take one helluva an effort to turn things around. The good news is that Ubisoft generally has a good track record when it comes to post-release support – but the French firm has never found itself under this kind of financial pressure before.

[source edge.media-server.com, via insider-gaming.com]

  • Share:
  • 39

About Sammy Barker

As the Editor of Push Square, Sammy has over 15 years of experience analysing the world of PlayStation, from PS3 through PS5 and everything in between. He’s an expert on PS Studios and industry matters, as well as sports games and simulators. He also enjoys RPGs when he has the time to dedicate to them, and is a bit of a gacha whale.

Comments 20

Multiplayer live service shooters are the absolute worst investment right now. Have they not been paying attention to the market?

You're going to be hearing a lot about how most games are underperforming this gen.

Been calling it since 2020

Also PS5 sales down 50% in Europe compared to last year

Well, a few weeks ago if some YouTubers were to be believed it was a Call of Duty killer.

After giving it a whirl can’t say I’m surprised, it certainly didn’t kill anything I have for other tactical/arcade/online shooters.

I love that there’s competition, but I’d love it even more if there were good competition.

I think back to when I was first online with a dial up modem, I had Quake, Unreal Tournament, Counter Strike and so on. All such massive player bases and fans.

Now it’s CoD or Fortnite. With hints of Val or Apex Legends for the YouTubers trying to be edgy.

God I miss how much decent competition there was back then.

Ah well, onwards and upwards, hopefully something will crop up one day that grabs people. Enough people to be financially worth it that is.

@TrickyDicky99 PS5 sold incredibly well last year to be fair, though. It was always going to be down this year.

(But I agree, their inability to get the price down is becoming a problem.)

Once Concord stole its player base it was all over.

Should've called it XSubmissive and added some musclemommy skins to tap into the untapped overlap of Paypigs and F2P players.

Give me a call Ubi, we'll work something out.

@TomasVrboda I agree live service shooters definitely seem to be the biggest gamble in gaming. There’s clearly a very high risk for high reward but the failure rate is high.

Like I’ve said before they’d probably get better odds taking that money down the casino.

@NEStalgia all two of them

I stopped playing it to be honest. Actually enjoyed the first season, zero stakes and just pure shooty fun. But the content didn’t really arrive in time.

@TomasVrboda it's probably because games take so many years to develop. They saw Fortnite printing way too much money and decided on live service games a few years later. That's probably why we see so many of those failing in the past couple years.

Publishers spent so much money trying to get into the market, they still try to release those games even if it fails. It was just a horrible decision from pretty much every single publisher with the end result dropping like turds all at the same-ish time.

Ubi brought a lot of this on themselves.

Hopefully the Guilletine brothers concede the reigns of the company

The only good thing that came out of this miserable generation is Ubisoft going down hard.
My years of complaining about these turds is finally having a payoff.
It's the fact that they've always had so much potential and just absolutely waste it so badly.

They've become too complacent. "They'll buy this crap anyway, who cares?".
Well, gamers have been pushed too far, in too many aspects for far too long and they're voting with their wallets. Good riddance.
Put the consumers back at #1 priority and I hope other publishers (SONY!!) take notes b

They should’ve focused on adding multiplayer back to Assasins Creed; There is NOTHING like it, & Decieve Inc sucks

@McTwist $ony is not listening , don’t get your hopes up with that one. The PS4 success was so big & made them real comfortable & cozy .

@get2sammyb I believe PS4 sold more in it's 4th year compared to it's 3rd year. PS5 is down 50% in it's 4th year compared to it's 3rd year

That slippery slope is covered in ice and grease

I wonder if Sony think the PC sales and constant last gen games were worth it? Then again, Herman did think Concord was a 'Star Wars' franchise

Anyone who has played Siege knows full well that Ubisoft's skin designs are atrocious and rarely worth money.

Keep Microsoft away. Thanks.

This, to me, is a continuation of their fall from grace.

They put out these half baked games with good concepts but they consistently fail to make them game of the year quality and seem perfectly fine with 'good enough' and often less than that sometimes.

Assassin's Creed Mirage was a big let down with it's poor voice acting and face animations. Skull & Bones was described as quadruple A (insert laughter). Star Wars Outlaws was buggy and poorly recieved and they litter games with microtransactions.

I suspect it's management that's the issue here but man... UBISOFT SUCKS!

But they continuously get away with it...

When CoD releases that'll be the final nail in the coffin, too.

Show Comments

Leave A Comment

Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...

Related Articles

How to Pre-Order PS5's 30th Anniversary CollectionUpdate: Queue now live in USRyan Craddock, 23 Sep 2024Sony Appears to Leak Many Games from State of PlaySpoilersSammy Barker, 24 Sep 2024