XDefiant May Be In Danger Of Losing Support If Player Counts Don't Increase By Season 3

XDefiant launched to some big numbers...like REALLY big numbers. The F2P shooter pulled in over 1 million players in just a few hours initially. Ubisoft was thrilled. Could they have the next big multiplayer shooter on their hands? The company thought as much when they dropped recent financials and attributed a portion of their Q1 success to the game. CEO Yves Guillemot even said more recently that while the game had issues, he expected the player count to cross the 11 million mark due to Season 1 improvements, and he hoped XDefiant would become a "serious esport."

My what a difference two months makes.

A new report from Tom Henderson over at Insider Gaming says that employees at Ubisoft San Fran working on XDefaint are unhappy with leadership not taking responsibility for the game's declining player counts, with one source saying that 20,000 would likely be a number that Ubisoft would actually be happy with across all platforms, implying they aren't at that mark and player spending is on the decline, too.

Henderson reports that if numbers don't increase by Season 3, the game may be in danger of losing support, usually a death knell for live service games that require post-launch support to keep the players you do have in game. A source tells Henderson to "Expect more Ubisoft San Fran layoff headlines within six months."

Reports of Ubisoft's culture problems also seem to have been swept under the rug, according to Henderson.

Seeing as Season 3 will launch after the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, improving player counts could be a steep hill to climb for the team, even in the best of circumstances.