Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has confirmed that XDefiant has fallen behind expectations amid company struggles.
This week, the news that XDefiant is struggling went somewhat under the radar following what is arguably one of Ubisoft’s most challenging periods in recent memory. First, it was announced that Assassin’s Creed Shadows is to be delayed until early 2025, followed by several announcements at the company as a whole, including Ubisoft’s board launching an investigation into the company’s struggles.
As part of these major announcements, Ubisoft held a Trading Call Update, during which Guillemot answered questions about why the company had reduced its second-quarter revenue expectations by 30%. Nicholas Langlet of BNP Paribas asked, “So the Q2 guidance, is it only Star Wars Outlaws, or is there something else underperforming in the portfolio?”
Guillemot replied, “It mostly reflects the softer-than-expected sales for Star Wars Outlaws. We also had behind expectations for XDefiant, which we will give you a bit more detail at the end of October.” He continued, “To a much lesser extent, with a limited impact was a lower expectation for XDefiant.”
Guillemot’s comments are a stark difference from the company’s first-quarter sales report, where he reported that the game was “off to an encouraging start as we continue to grow the audience at a steady pace and plan a quarterly roadmap of content that will allow us to firmly establish the game over time.”
Last month, Insider Gaming reported that XDefiant was at risk of losing its much-needed post-launch support if it couldn’t be turned around by the end of Season 3, as the game has been struggling to see 20,000 concurrent players and an uptick in player spending. The report and subsequent community conversations led to XDefiant saying that the game “the game is absolutely not dying“, in a recent blog post.
Insider Gaming understands that the game fell below 200,000 DAU (Daily Active Users in 24 hours) throughout August but saw a 40% daily average uptick in DAU throughout its daily rewards program. While good on paper, player spending and continuous player engagement are the answers to prevent the game from going on life support. At the time of writing, XDefiant leadership still hopes that Season 3 will be the start of bringing players and their wallets back.
A silver lining for XDefiant, though, is a push to Steam. While I’ve not been told the game will come to the platform for definite yet, Ubisoft’s recent announcement that its games will be coming to Steam on Day 1 has understandably reignited the team to push for it internally. So, fingers crossed, XDefiant will make its way to Steam soon.
What do you think of Season 2 of XDefiant? Let us know on the Insider Gaming forum.
For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out the news that Deadlock topped player charts on Steam in August.