Technical failures and management prematurely shut down XDefiant

The trajectory of XDefiant, Ubisoft's competitive shooter, ended in the worst possible way: with the project canceled, the team laid off, and the executive producer announcing his departure from the industry. Mark Rubin, former producer of the Call of Duty franchise and the main name behind XDefiant, detailed the reasons for the project's failure in a post on the social network X.

According to Rubin, the biggest mistake was insisting on using an internal Ubisoft engine that was not designed for competitive multiplayer games. The engine had critical network flaws — especially related to players' connection instability — and, even after several efforts, the team simply “couldn't solve the network code problems.” He directly criticizes Ubisoft's policy of prioritizing its own technologies over established solutions like the Unreal Engine.

Another determining factor was the lack of resources for content production and issue fixing. Rubin states that game support was discontinued before the team even had time to deliver updates to the player base. “We couldn't create new content, nor continue what was promised,” he lamented. The decision to end support, according to him, was made too early, without considering the game's initial growth.

Released in 2024, XDefiant entered the market with little marketing, but achieved significant results in the first weeks. According to Rubin, the game had “the fastest player acquisition in recent Ubisoft history”, thanks to the community and “word of mouth” among content creators and fans. Despite the initial traction, technical issues compromised the experience — especially for users with unstable connections, leading to a steep decline in the active player base.

Rubin also confirmed that the entire game team was laid off at the end of 2024 and that he himself is leaving the gaming industry. “It was a sad day for all XDefiant fans,” he wrote in his farewell, thanking everyone who supported the project.

The cancellation of XDefiant represents another episode in the sequence of controversial decisions by Ubisoft, which recently also halted or delayed projects like The Division Heartland and Project Q. At a time when studios face cuts, layoffs, and uncertainties about proprietary engines versus outsourced solutions, the XDefiant case exposes the weaknesses of a strategy that prioritizes technological control, even at the expense of quality and stability.