Ubisoft pulls the plug on XDefiant, to shut San Francisco and Osaka studios

(Reuters) – France’s largest online game maker Ubisoft (EPA:UBIP) has determined to discontinue growth on XDefiant, its free-to-play first-person shooter title, it mentioned on Wednesday.

Because of this, Ubisoft will shut its San Francisco and Osaka manufacturing studios and ramp down manufacturing in Sydney, resulting in a lack of 143 jobs in San Francisco and a possible discount of 134 folks in Osaka and Sydney.

Ubisoft mentioned half of the XDefiant workforce worldwide would transition to different roles throughout the firm.

“The choice follows a radical assessment of the sport’s efficiency, profitability, and market situations, and aligns with the corporate’s elevated selectivity in its R&D investments,” Ubisoft mentioned in a press release.

“Season 3 of XDefiant will nonetheless launch and servers will stay lively till June 3, 2025,” it added.

It mentioned that though XDefiant generated preliminary pleasure, it didn’t retain a big sufficient participant base to determine it as a viable competitor to different free-to-play first-person shooter titles or to assist Ubisoft’s continued funding in it.

“The cancellation of the venture reveals how robust the shooter market is, the place it’s troublesome to interrupt via amongst robust IPs which have dominated the section for years,” Erste Group analyst Piotr Bogusz mentioned.

Ubisoft mentioned it might apply the teachings discovered from XDefiant to its future free-to-play titles.

The French group has been tormented by delays and the underperformance of some key titles, together with Star Wars Outlaws which lagged gross sales expectations after its August launch. Its shares have misplaced half of their worth to this point this 12 months.

Ubisoft added the Video games-as-a-Service (GAAS) class stays its key power and a central pillar of its technique, with notable successes comparable to Rainbow Six, The Crew and For Honor.