Let's get the obvious out of the way: XDefiant is one of the worst names for a videogame you'll ever see. Yet underneath the identikit theme and terrible name, XDefiant turned out to be a pretty decent shooter, and following last year's release "the perfect antidote to those tired of Call of Duty's modern-day bloat".
Despite a strong start, however, player numbers soon fell off, [[link]] and by the end of 2024 had announced its intention to . This was shortly afterwards followed by a real oddity: a massive content drop of . Turned out that a game players had criticised for lacking content actually had a tonne of content more-or-less ready to go.
This was a major issue for XDefiant since launch, and never really went away. And it's linked to the fact that the team didn't have "the right resources to make content for the game. What we saw at Season 3 wasn't even enough content in my mind for launch. There were some really cool features coming later in Season 4 or even 5 that would have completed the game in a way that I felt it should have been for launch… we just didn't have the gas to go the distance for a free-to-play game."
Rubin still thinks the team produced "a really fun and terrific game" with "some of the best maps ever made for an arcade shooter". And he reckons that, even though it's gone, XDefiant made an impact on other shooters: "We saw a lot of reactions from other games to what we were doing and that to me speaks volumes."
At the time XDefiant's closure was announced, Ubisoft also confirmed it meant hundreds of layoffs.
"The team behind XDefiant was all let go at the end of last year and I know many people have moved on to other studios, which is great, and I hope that for all of those still looking, that they find something quickly," says Rubin.
"As for me, I've decided to leave the industry and spend more time with my family so unfortunately you won't be hearing about me making another game. I do care passionately about the shooter space and hope that someone else can pick up the flag that I was trying to carry and make games again that care about the players, treat them with respect and listen to what they have to say."
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