You can't even download this game anymore

xDefiant is shutting down after facing stiff competition in October with Call of Duty Black Ops 6 multiplayer gameplay competing for the same playerbase. There's a rumor that the player base has already fallen off and that Ubisoft leadership is disappointed in the game's performance. Originally it was rumored that season 3 might be the very last season for XDefiant but now we know for sure. You can't even download the game anymore.
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[@diegogiggs4805]

XDefiant not being on Steam was a mistake

[@shira2151]

It literally did well without it. It's being closed for other reasons.

[@4ourign980]

@@shira2151 rt! and i was supposed to come dec18 with s3 and net code fixes also with promoting the game and ubi knew that and cut it off 15 days b4

[@cinemapigeon4898]

@@shira2151 Every download helps

[@tomasas1289]

xdefiant was a mistake*

[@XDef1ant]

It was literally coming. So much was coming up. This was a rug pull from the beginning. Ubu released an NFT game too.. they're scamming.

[@EdwinDPZ]

Not letting people who uninstalled it redownload it to give it one last go is pretty shitty.

[@mizaru666]

At least I was able to reinstall it, so either it’s a misunderstanding or they blocked the install in last 12 hours.

[@petermarsigliano2775]

anyone that played the game before december 4th should be allowed to redownload it and play it at least according to the former devs

[@GodlyZOfficial]

If you didn’t already have it installed on console, ggs. People on PC can still redownload thru the Ubisoft launcher.

[@BriefDark]

I was able to redownload it after a few attempts.

[@Prinz_Kasper]

Weird because I can still redownload it

[@Bumpster316]

XDefiant didn’t fail, Ubisoft failed XDefiant.

[@TheSparkynuts]

Lets be honest xdefiant was losing ubisoft a massive amount of money too

[@AvieRaptor]

Cope

[@potapotapotapotapotapota]

While Ubisoft suck, I don't think they are to blame. The multiplayer shooter market is just oversaturated and dominated by already well-established series'. XDefiant was also unable to compete with Call of Duty mainly due to the busted hit registration.

[@KenshinRell]

@@TheSparkynutswhat free to play game is successful 6 months after release? This is more on Ubisoft not XDefiant get the game a better publisher

[@MSCbay1]

They quite literally never fixed the number 1 issue that the community unanimously agreed on and stopped playing over. Considering there was barely any content added each season, the netcode should’ve been addressed much much sooner

[@KaufDirGeld]

putting it on steam would have brought players, they also could have advertised it. releasing it with good hitreg would have retained players. having cool skins in the store would have brought money. oh well, i guess nobody could have known.

[@killerkevo]

Cod been doing it for yrs and yet everybody just loves the game

[@aarlavaan]

It was supposed to come to steam in the next season, if I recall correctly. And it was literally released a year before it was supposed to because the marketing bungled things up. So instead of letting the devs do their thing, ubisoft forced them to put it out early.

[@KenshinRell]

@@aarlavaanit needed to be on steam day one

[@aarlavaan]

@@KenshinRell not saying it didn't.

[@KenshinRell]

@@aarlavaan well like Drift said the COD storm was going to come regardless so you’d think Ubisoft would’ve put the game on Steam and advertised it more They didn’t but again this isn’t the only game Ubisoft failed with

[@damiangarcia1997]

Let’s be honest. When your only advertising was it had no sbmm and nothing else content wise or gameplay wise was spoken of, it was only a matter of time before they pulled the plug. And even if it went on longer, it would only be a matter of time before they put so much r6 in there

[@recordstraight556]

They catered to the diminishing population of people who care this much about old call of duty. Their entire gimmick for this game was purely to satisfy older millennials. This was the mistake as you said, they innovated in absolutely no avenue of the model, they didn’t even attempt to make the game have as much to it as a cod would at launch. It was bare bones and just…nostalgia bait. Games should never strive to be like xdefiant

[@damiangarcia1997]

@ and even then all the old cod boomers still go back to cod no matter what. Either that or they’ll go on and on how they know how to make a better cod than anyone else only for it to be an unplayable abomination

[@recordstraight556]

@@damiangarcia1997 yuhp, 100% And that is just one portion of that “fanbase”, they have this weird relationship with cod and its been around since the dawn of time, it’s almost like they hate everything but they are in a abusive relationship with cod. Cod is super successful, but it’s people like these that makes it seem like cod gets so much hate, whole time it’s just mfs who have no personality and can’t find any other game to play and rage every single day

[@danjjjatest]

Xdefiant was just a side chick people used to get Activision jealous.

[@Simp_Supreme]

@@recordstraight556 yh there really seems to be some repressed rage with COD. People can dislike COD all you want but the reality is that the games make billions qaurterly and sells millions annually for a reason. They clearly must be doing something right to be pulling those numbers.

[@Rainbowhawk1993]

Single Player gamer to Multiplayer gamer: “Wow, sucks to be you.”

[@CrossrWhite]

Weird, because Ubisoft really butchered a lot of their single player games too to get to this point. I think people just got tired of Ubisoft's decisions overall.

[@whiteboikev]

u must b noob if only play single player probably so bad

[@Rainbowhawk1993]

@ Yeah. I suck at PvP so I find sanctuary in Single Player games.

[@CrossrWhite]

@@Rainbowhawk1993 I'm the same way. Been playing Pizza Tower over Black Ops currently

[@Simp_Supreme]

@@CrossrWhite eh, 50/50. They make junk food games. They aren't RDR2 level but they aren't gollum level. Outlaws is a good game and I expect shadows to be a good game, Prince of Persia was a great game. The problem is that the games follow a similar formula and release unpolished, like the MC in outlaws looks freaky.

[@TeeTeeRB]

Driftor: I helped develop XDefiant and am really sad that the game is being shutdown. It deserved community support and was a great concept. Also Driftor: I uninstalled the game 2 months ago to free up space for other games. (Also hasn't posted an XDefiant video in 5 months) *lmao*

[@wanderingwobb6300]

That about sums it up really. Also a bit pedantic but he really shouldn't use the word developed because he didn't, he just helped playtest it early on.

[@Drift0r]

I had a 500GB SSD and CoD took up half of that.

[@Drift0r]

I did like 100+ pages of writeups, 100+ hours of meetings, and got paid a few thousand dollars in consulting fees. I guess that is just playtesting.

[@Bestow3000]

@@Drift0r You're a large creator with a million subs. You can easily afford 1TB of storage space and it won't break your bank. Stop the bs. You didn't like the game as much as you make it out to be.

[@raylone13]

​@@Drift0r that sounds like been paid to play test and give a opinion not code or design..... I couldn't care less but..... let focus on what is true.

[@Swan62116]

From what I heard, Mark and devs were completely blindsided by the higher ups and was a last minute decision before they made the announcement. Really unfortunate cause they were about to release a bunch of new content on S3 and 4. A lot of people said “Mark lied about the tweets he made” but I dont believe that.

[@koopinator20]

That's what I think. That it was management and everyone says mark lied but where's the proof he lied. If you look into legacy of kain dead sun the devs were working on it and weren't told that it would be cancelled. So what's to say mark didn't know that headquarters planned to shut it down and that it was alright or that headquarters told him lies and then confirm it later causing him to be seen as the one lying. Since Ubisoft can say he lied and not them make someone take the fall.

[@epoxy1710]

He lied, the game had less then 8.000 players worldwide when writing it. He knew the game was doomed 3 weeks after release.

[@Swan62116]

@ which Article does it say it had less than “8,000” players? Cause we dont know exactly how much. We only know from one of the articles from a CEO that says it had less than 20,000.

[@thetechdog]

Exactly. The devs didn't even know. Blame truth talked to a dev, apparently they were even planning a meeting about XDefiant's future. And then Ubisoft, in order to save money, closes the studio developing it before it's biggest season yet is being released.

[@Guapanator]

An xdefiant youtuber made a video about what was going on behind the scenes at ubisoft via devs who were laid off and no longer had NDAs in effect. (He prefaced that he couldn't verify if they were actual ex employees) Apparently ubisoft is close to going bankrupt and they're liquidating assets and are really hoping assassin's creed shadows pulls them out of the hole they've dug for themselves. Also it wasn't up to the xdefiant team to have the game get shut down, it was ubisoft. Apparently they finally found the issue with the net code which wasn't server or engine side, it was something within the code. It's a shame, since season 4 was a complete overhaul of the game but we'll never see it

[@juliusc1381]

The implied promise was "classic" CoD (CoD 4-Blops 2 era). We got Blops 4 with bhopping. Hero shooter. Has weapons and abilities that one-tap in a longer ttk game; Whether it is balanced or not isn't the issue, casuals easily get annoyed by this. The game launched with poor netcode quality. Don't care about the excuses of it being a last minute upgrade, the fact is it launched poorly. Ubisoft's stock value is in the toilet for reasons unrelated to Xdefiant. Not enough funny things that made old CoD great (such as obscure map spots, cross-map tomahawking, pretending to be a corpse, playing with the physics engine, etc etc). And some complain that there is little to the progression system. The no sbmm, and the fact you can aim and shoot a gun feel like the only returns to form. I support Xdefiant and want it to continue, but when looking back it is hard to ignore certain aspects of the game.

[@bobdarrick2628]

😂 Glad this game is getting shut down. It was mid. It had a good amount of maps and it had good guns in it with real names. The main issue was that the gunplay was bad. The ttk was too slow. The game also looked a bit off considering we had these modern, realistic guns in a game that was probably too bright (but that’s a more minor thing).

[@wentoneisendon6502]

Have no idea why they thought heros would be a good thing. All a studio needs to do is make a classic cod with kill streaks and they'll get a lot of sales

[@atago-neesama296]

Gobislop made a hero shooter in an age where they’re not even relevant.

[@liammbiscwit]

​@wentoneisendon6502 classic cod would not do well, you'd have about 12 players and half would get bored in a couple months

[@I__am__Racist]

​@@bobdarrick2628 If you think this game has a slow TTK your skin is probably really really brown.

[@danodudeX]

Game Good Publisher Bad That’s it. The end.

[@wanderingwobb6300]

Both suck although at least Ubisoft put out The Lost Crown this year which was a high point. The same can't be said for XDefiant

[@NebLleb]

Yeah. Ubisoft, amirite?

[@scoutgolf5282]

I played the beta of this game. It was fun but felt uninspired, and when launch came, the game was fun but the hit reg and annoying abilits really was frustrating. I think the Finals just did it better. Have you tried the finals?? It’s good fun.

[@Jayuun318]

Agree though The Finals is only fun for so lomg. I'd say a hour or under in and it's ready to turn off.

[@BobbyBoushaay]

​​@Taeta318 that's literally how I feel about it

[@F4T4L3FF3CTx78]

Drift0r loves the finals, he brings it up often

[@whiteboikev]

final so butt

[@salzaman41429]

I just recently tried THE FINALS, man is it polished for a f2p fps game.

[@baquithemonkey5330]

One thing I would add is the market isn't just saturated with FPS games, but saturated with live service games. Gamers aren't running out of hours in the day to play all these live services games. So they're just going to choose their favorite one which tends to be the most popular game

[@nealang9520]

The game is basically a lite Black Ops 4

[@bobdarrick2628]

Yep, which isn’t saying much lol

[@noobsbrother_]

I really wanted this game to be successful. I actually had fun playing, its a shame

[@dillonc7955]

This is why games need their own identity. If they're not huge trend followers like Fortnite, the game is going to fizzle out. Black Ops 4 had a huge problem with this. There was no campaign, therefore no grounded setting and no reason to build upon that game's setting.

[@promeym2587]

Bullet sponges and endless spider-bots that were even worse after they were "fixed" killed the game for me and checked me out after a month. And, apparently, player counts absolutely cratered to below 20K.

[@BulletForceKngz]

When your marketing pitch is "COD without SBMM" you know your product wasn't that good to begin with.

[@bobdarrick2628]

Yeah that reason alone isn’t enough to make a good game. XDefiant had bad gunplay and not much appeal to it. It had a good amount of maps, modern guns and I liked that it had real names for the guns. I didn’t mind the specialists personally. But yeah, the game was mid. I don’t think it was terrible but I don’t think anyone spoke about it after Bo6 came out. I’m happy with it being shut down (but I think the devs should still keep their jobs if possible).

[@YourGuySmallFry]

Drift0r we both know you've played enough call of duty games without skill based match making to understand that removing SBMM didn't cause this.

[@KeyJOSH]

Consider the fact that those COD games you're referring to were before SBMM was much of a thing at all in the industry, so there was no other option for low-skill players. Today, though, a low skill player will jump on a game like XDefiant, get clobbered, and eventually drop it for a game they feel like they can compete in. Anecdotally, I personally knew many casual gamers back in the day that just didn't bother with online multiplayer at all because they found it too hard. Player counts are way higher across the board today, and SBMM might have something to do with that.

[@Jvirtual97]

When your marketing pitch is "COD without SBMM" you know you have no confidence in your product.

[@kingcaesar3693]

Thing is only the playerbase said this. They didn't market it as "COD without SBMM". They said it had no SBMM yes, but they never once said it was that. It failed cause it's just not fun to play much like CoD is to me. It's why I dipped years ago on that and went to other games. Now I play hero shooters mostly or Delta Force.

[@MegaDAli95]

Random people on the internet said this. At no point did Ubisoft, Mark Rubin, Aches or any other XDefiant dev market the game as “COD without SBMM”.

[@thebigsam]

It's weird to realize that a bunch of shooters died within 3 year period that BF2042 was (and still is) around. The amount of hate the game got was insane (most of it deserved in one way or another), had every single sign that it's going to be abandoned in 12-18 moths and yet it lives on, has semi-active support with some new content to this day. And as an active player - community definitely buys skins. Other games crash and burned while this cursed game lived on. It even hit the record for the longest supported BF game in the series

[@1div2agent74]

Haven’t been able to find a match for 2 years on bf2042. Get stuck on 3/64 or 5/128. Game is dead dead.

[@thebigsam]

@@1div2agent74 bruh... either you live in OCE/Africa or just turn on the crossplay

[@BrexitNegir]

@@1div2agent74I’m with the dude above. I live in NA and have 0 issues finding full lobbies.

[@SalamenceFury]

Turns out when your only advertisement is "We don't have SBMM!" it attracts the kind of people who want to sweat their asses off and drive away all the newbie players. The days of someone picking a franchise and sticking to it are gone. Modern gamers will drop a game at the drop of a hat if they aren't having fun with it.

[@TecraX2]

Given the Playerbase, SBMM was never really even an option...

[@TamerSpoon3]

It's true. The majority of FPS players have an inflated opinion of their skill thanks to years of SBMM; when they are forced to face reality by playing against a random sample of the playerbase, they get mad and quit. As proven by the SBMM study that Activision released, SBMM exists to give low skilled players (who comprise the majority of the player base) easier games. When SBMM is relaxed (i.e. their matches get harder), low skill players experience lower K/Ds and lower KPM compared to when SBMM is strict (i.e. their matches get easier) and quit as a result. It's a simple numbers game: if 75% of your playerbase will play more with strict SBMM compared to 1% with relaxed SBMM, then obviously the developers are going to implement strict SBMM. Who could've guessed that people have more fun when they are doing better? And since the majority of the playerbase is comprised of shitters and casuals, Activision has to coddle them with matchmaking to keep them playing the game.

[@CH3SS]

It wasn't just black ops 6 that destroyed it. XDefiant didn't do anything impressive and there was no reason to play it over other games.

[@jortepap]

Theres no reason to play BO6 over XDefiant. SBMM simply ruins COD multiplayer COMPLETELY. XDefiant is waay more fun and relaxed.

[@alejandrotellez2962]

Yeah, even with friends the game blew. I'm not a fan of BO6, but at the very least the gun play and movement is fun; whereas xdefiant had nothing going for it.

[@BalkanGames]

@@jortepapIt's so fun that it will get shut down in 6 months.

[@derangedanimal9098]

Gameplay was impressive . I enjoyed it . Polished. They needed a reward progression and better looking skins and apparently season 4 was going to add another mode like zombies

[@samuelault4723]

@@jortepapXdef was boring. Dropping 40 kills every match with a 3kd gets dull when you can’t even call in streaks. It was a pretty hollow game and I played elden ring and bloodborne over it all summer.

[@danielmartins4367]

Not being on Steam was a big reason it failed. Also lack of marketing. There was a big hype before it launched.. but that was it. And ofc, Ubisoft is going through an awful period right now when it comes to money, so they're cutting all the non-essencial stuff.

[@ik1llpeeple4fun]

Steam had nothing to do with it. Console still had xd and it still failed.

[@danielmartins4367]

@@ik1llpeeple4fun yeah it was on consoles, so what? It still wasn't on Steam which is the biggest PC store and market by far and is where the vast majority of PC players spend their money buying games. Ubisoft decided to release the game excusively on their crap laucher and a lot of people didn't even bother do download/play it. Facts. Specially when marketing was absolutely non-existent, how would Steam player even know about the game? not everyone watches KZbin or Twitch... The game not being on Steam was a major mistake. The sole reason the Finals is still being played is precisely because it is on Steam.

[@YourGuySmallFry]

So weird how they're not letting any new players in even though the servers will be up until June.

[@CarriesOnTop]

probably to save on server costs like he said

[@H.E.M.]

Well that’s because if they didn’t it would’ve gotten a ton of players back on with everyone talking about it. I was thinking of reinstalling it myself since I never even played it but wanted to see why it failed. I did download it when it released but mw3 was a fun cod so I never bothered to boot it up. Plus Ubisoft is trash.

[@ricolives1166]

XDefiant failed because Ubi didn't out it on Steam, had NO TV commercials & advertising, & Ubi did NOT sponsor big name people. CoD players "couldn't" play XDefiant because they would probably lose sponsorships & deals with Activision like being flown out & "easy lobbies". This is sad it truly is. The gaming community NEEDS to wake up because we all hate sbmm but since this game failed, managers at Activision will see this and celebrate because now their argument is "sbmm is needed".

[@goldenwolf_gamingYT]

I dnt see cod on tv anymore only on youtube ads

[@ricolives1166]

@goldenwolf_gamingYT really? I do

[@Vv_JASPER_vV]

@@goldenwolf_gamingYT COD commercials haven't been common for a while, but the series also has massive buy-in from digital storefronts owned by the likes of Microsoft, Sony, and even Valve. COD sells a ton of copies from this fact alone--it doesn't have to overcome hurdles like "quality" or "innovation" because the average gamer isn't going to think twice about buying the next COD when it's plastered on their home screen. It's the McDonald's of fps games, no matter the quality, people will always consume it because it's everywhere nowadays.

[@eliezercardoso8009]

​@@goldenwolf_gamingYTCOD doesn't really need that much marketing because the ip name alone attracts people, a new ip like XDefiant needs as much marketing as possible

[@goldenwolf_gamingYT]

@Vv_JASPER_vV digital copies arent owned its only the license you're buying to play the game so i dont count digital as actual sales knowing that fact

[@williebrown7640]

I truly think the games downfall was not releasing on last Gen consoles half the cod player base is still on last Gen. So they cut off millions of players.

[@Simp_Supreme]

40m active playstation users are still on PS4 so 'm not surprised by your statement but I'm sure there are current gen only games that are succesful right?

[@bobdarrick2628]

No serious gamers are on last gen and that isn’t the reason why the game flopped. This game was mid. The gunplay was bad and there wasn’t much appeal to play it.

[@7aemr]

@bobdarrick2628 this is a casual fps, so it should have been on ps4 and xbox one.

[@bobdarrick2628]

@ no last gen shouldn’t be supported and BO6 shouldnt have come out on it either. It’s been more than long enough for them to move on.

[@7aemr]

@bobdarrick2628 4 years? half of which was plagued by scalpers to even get the new consoles plus the economic state we are in today since the pandemic? are we on the same planet, ps4 is more than capable to run xdefiant.

[@nogi2167]

The only thing more record-breaking than the number of players it had at launch was the number of players it lost in 6 months. From something like 8 million to barely 20,000 is meteoric. Meteoric in the sense that it plummeted to Earth with such velocity that it burned out in a flash. A whole lot of people owe Tom Henderson an apology, cuz apparently he knew more about the state of Mark Rubin’s game than Mark Rubin did.

[@NapalmDust]

I'm honestly really sad to see it go. I honestly loved that you get character classes, but you can customize guns. It makes you take the classes strengths and weaknesses into account and play however you want to play. As a COD player looking for something new, xDefiant was just that! I love playing as the Cleaners and GS-Kommando. They're honestly really fun to play. Though I can't get past the lack of movement options or the rocky release, I went back to it a week ago and I'm surprised it was really polished and really fun! I won't forget this game. It gave me an amazing experience

[@fluxachieves7312]

The net code, lack of content, and all the delays on this game killed this game plus like they said they didn’t do any marketing for the game. Every time I streamed this game on TikTok no one had even heard about it and would try it especially since it’s free

[@SpectreSideQuests]

I think the game really did have potential but it wasn’t quite the return to old cod that people wanted. The best way I saw it summed up was “we wanted a return to classic cod and what we got was another version of black ops 4”

[@bobdarrick2628]

Gunplay was bad. Specialists weren’t inherently bad and I didn’t mind them, but the spider bot needed better balancing.

[@SpectreSideQuests]

@ I wouldn’t say the gunplay was bad but the net code was bad so it made it worse

[@bobdarrick2628]

@ the average AR took 6 shots to kill at close range and some SMGs took over 12 shots to kill at long range. The gunplay was bad imo and the biggest problem with the game.

[@SpectreSideQuests]

@ idk hit your shots then idk what to tell you, the netcode was the biggest problem that led to inconsistent ttk, that and phantoms having extra health. There was also a lack of things to in game which didn’t help.

[@jesperbottenheft]

And BO4 is basically a better alternative.

[@Cristian_D63]

Being delayed to not release during MW2 was probably the biggest mistake. When they missed that launch i knew it was going to ve chalked but I didn't expect it to end this quickly

[@KaguyasBeat]

Idk how it is on other platforms but at least on Playstation (which you appear to be on Drift based on the inputs being displayed) if you did have it and want to redownload, you can still do it from your game library.

[@KucherFPS]

*I personally see 4 big reasons why Xdefiant was a fail* *1) Shitty netcode (dying on the corners and stuff) and hit reg bug (some bullets are not doing damage despite your good aim)* This lies deep inside the game code, they basically used The Devision engine for FPS Arena shooter which is really stupid desicion and i'm surprised that noone from dev department said anything about it they needed to either build it from scratch or use something that would fit and didn't have such core problems. These problems were raised 3 years ago during first betas and despite promises they are not fixed till this day and tbf they probably couldn't be fixed unless they completely rework the engine. *2) Lack of content* And by content i mean not only maps and guns (this too of course) but lots of small stuff such as mastery skins for the weapons (3 is absolutely not enough) no grinding skins for any characters, no events, no free stuff for completing challenges, not enough xp sources (take a look at bo6 like when you playing there is ton of stuff going on like you opened this attachment for this kill, you got +20xp for this kinda kill, here is +50xp for that etc. and this is what keeps giving you dophamine and keeps you in the game because there is always something new and exciting) *3) Quality of the content is bad* Not only it was a lack of it but also as a f2p in-game store it's a crucial part to make profit for the studio and unfortunately most of the skins were just recolours and not something entirely new, i don't know who did this job but i'm sure there is a lot of talented designers out there who could make something that can make you take a loan to buy a new bundle (lol) same with battlepasses, for almost 100 tiers each (and 50 pre-season) and 2 seasons there were maybe 2-3 skins that caught my eye (and i'm someone who likes buying skins but i didn't spend a $1 in this game) *4) Series of wrong desicions:* -- No Steam -- No Advertisiment on any big platform -- Very slow grind progression that was changed back and forth like 5 times simply because nobody could figure out what was the right amount of kills to level up guns -- Ridiculous prices for the very mediocre skins at best and no option to split bundle and buy only one skin -- Failed communication and inability to listen to the community (they were told multiple times throughout the years of betas about netcode and hitreg and did nothing, they were told about lack of content and it's quality throughout release and did nothing) and cherry on top is Mark's famous tweet with something like "if you don't like it don't play it!" Wondering how that turned out for you, Mark? I think that Xdefiant had a really big potential to be among the best FPS's for years to come but it was all wasted Thanks, -Obama- Ubisoft

[@ZeroKitsunei]

The rules have changed, and they did so in like 2016. You can't just make a multi-player shooter anymore. You have to have a killer BP with stuff that's not just recolors of existing skins. You have to have a store that has a fuckload of different stuff that looks real cool. Updates. You need a new weapon or map at least every month or 2. You need events. With limited time currency that you get for playing "Capture the Present. You can't just remake the OG MW2 and have do just as good as it did back in the day. I think XD proved that.

[@rayrizzi7165]

Hey i have a Xbox and its not in the store anymore but if you go to all your owned games you can reinstall it from there. Hope this helps.

[@Jordanthekind]

Except if you installed through Ubisoft+ then you cannot download or play it at all.

[@allennavas3830]

Me and a friend of mine recently talked about it today. He said, "Well, you still can play CoD"...

[@JALC-x]

i was playing xdefisnt daily for a decent amount of time because i was burnt out on mw cods and liked the no sbmm, but i couldn't help but feel like i was just playing it while i waited for a decent cod game to be released. as soon as bo6 came out I havent played xdefiant once

[@BlueSpectre]

the metoric rise in player count followed by a massive fall off was due to the fact the players wanted snd off the get go, and everyone wanted a mode with no hero ability cheese. you gun a guy down 2 or 3 times and suddenly he's hiding in a corner the rest of the game on a cleaner and blowing himself up with you on repeat.... that and probably the slowest response to net code issues in history of shooters, had incredible potential, but lasted honestly longer than i expected. i was thinking total shutdown by november

[@sobeses7188]

at the end of the day, as much as I enjoyed it, XDefiant lacked enough content at launch and didn't implement any hype features to keep people interested (like killstreaks for example) to capture people. that being said, Ubisoft really did not give this game enough support to even get it off the ground. they shouldve taken some money out of that stupid pirate ship and thrown it into xdefiant instead. a few more maps, something like killstreaks, and some better marketing, and this game could've at least lasted a lot longer

[@KaletheQuick]

"Then call of duty brought that to console." Wow man. Just wow.

[@KizWhalifa.]

Bo6 definitely impacted the player count but in saying that people are starting to turn against it, they should have waited to see how season 3 performed and put on steam before pulling the plug.

[@userabcdef6436]

The first time I heard about this game was when you made a video about the consulting work you did for it. Such a shame it failed, I feel like it had a lot of potential.

[@TecraX2]

Even though Ubisoft has unlocked EVERY ITEM in the game for EVERYONE, they only offer refunds for purchases made in 30 days prior to the announcement, along with those who bought the Top-Tier Founder's Pack at launch (because "logic"), but NOTHING for anything else!

[@KianFloppa]

The Finals is still thriving you saying 5k is like 10 times less the actual numbers

[@minnidot]

its such a good game

[@TheShizzlemop]

idk, steamcharts says it has a 15k 24h peak. 10 times seems like a stretch

[@TheWoody0007]

​@@TheShizzlemop exactly, the games not thriving, more so surviving

[@ghostraider4312]

Eh it’s more of a survival. But for sure steam did help.

[@SkywalkFPV]

Unbelievable we can still play decade old games no problem, but the latest and greatest titles just being removed from existence, to be nothing more than a vague memory, should be illegal!

[@dudesnes]

Tbf it was unlikely Mark would have admitted, “Yeah, we’re considering shutting it down,” a few months ago when it was still just a possibility. Announcing something like that too soon could’ve effectively doomed the game earlier. This would have impacted Ubisoft’s shareholders and obviously that’s the top priority

[@llama62]

Wait you can’t download it anymore but it’s staying up until JUNE??? That’s insane

[@wesrageking7161]

Loved my time playing, helped me get through my last deployment. I really had high hopes for this game.

[@David.77]

One of the main reasons XDefiant shut down so soon, is that Ubisoft is doing really terribly financially. If they were doing well, they may be less risk-averse and invest more into XDefiant.

[@CarriesOnTop]

As a guy that still plays defiant very casual by the way I always have a great time. No sbmm made it so that I didn't see any lag and yes the hit reg used to be funky but its honestly not bad at all right now. This is such a bummer cause its partially my fault the game didn't do good bc I didn't spend any money on it.

[@phillipforrest7267]

If you already had it installed, you can still re-install after viewing your full library on Xbox. Happened to me yesterday

[@Aurik-Kal-Durin]

I feel like this was less of a failure of XDefiant, and more of a failure of Ubisoft itself. Ubisoft has had a very bad year where every major game they've put out has flopped, including Skull & Bones and Star Wars: Outlaws, and then there was the delay of Assassin's Creed: Shadows, a game that is absolutely going to flop when it finally launches... I feel like Ubisoft simply decided to sacrifice this game as a way to cut their losses rather than a failure of the game itself.

[@thewanderer6984]

After i got tired of the sbmm in bo6, i went back to xdefiant and was having fun Then this happened :(

[@papicashmoneybagz2245]

This is the first time I’ve ever had a game yanked out my “owned games tab” I feel a little violated lol

[@yurrgee]

If they had nerfed Trip Mines and removed the Spider Bot entirely, they could’ve retained more players. Trip Mines are impossible to counter since you can’t see or dodge them. These issues are even worse in Bomb mode because you only have one life. It disrupts the game flow when most deaths come from Trip Mines or spammed Spider Bots, compounded by the terrible net code. This heavily restricts aggressive playstyles since you’re almost guaranteed to die to one of these every round. A bad game would be 10 kills with 8 deaths with 7 of those deaths coming from Trip Mines you cant see or being stunned by a Spider Bot while in a gun fight.

[@BenGOW]

If you crouch or slide you don’t die to mines and they always come up with a warning. Became very easy to consistently dodge when you figure that out.

[@Bestow3000]

Don't forget bunny hopping being so problematic that the devs took too long to fix it and many left and never return ever again.

[@yurrgee]

@@BenGOW bro idk what luck you got but i can tell you now, i slide, crouch, jump around the corner and still die every time to it. Dont get me wrong there’s SUPER RARE instances where i somehow dont get hit or barely damaged, but most of the time the only guaranteed consistent way to counter it is making sure you somehow get your ssa ALLLLLLLLL the way around that corner😂😂😂.

[@TheLurch11]

I just started playing it 2-3 weeks ago and I love it.. such a bummer. Well I played beta a WHILE ago, and there were a few issues that scared people off and never came back. The desync is still a huge issue. I'll slide behind cover and die a second or two later behind walls you can't walling. Sometimes you'll even see people's bullets fly past you that came from across the map through like 10 objects/walls lol. They don't do damage, but still.. tf

[@jorjor500]

The net-code and strange b-hopping part of engagements killed the game for me. At release (not sure now) you could change momentum mid-air, and with the already poor net code every CQC gunfight devolved into two people jump spamming at every engagement with many feeling like they were decided halfway by whoever got the server side advantage. Instead of just making the simple Change of not letting players change momentum mid-air which would help not only nerf b-hopping but also the ability for server side issues to keep up, they added a ton of bandaid fixes. After a point CQC gunfights just felt bad to play, and it turned me off the game.

[@Zegin17]

They released everything in XDefiant, all the weapons, attachments, Camos, skins and everything is permanently unlocked for all players.

[@goldenwolf_gamingYT]

So basically Mark Reuben was wrong about it being rumors. And i dont think black ops 6 fault at all tbh but XDefiant fault since the marketing point was geared mainly towards CoD players and constantly trying to be a better version of cod while constantly and consistently being compared to cod. If they werent trying to make xdefiant be a better version of cod they wouldve stayed around longer. The grind being changed multiple times when players were close to getting a specific camo like gold camo just to see all their progress get absolutely dunked on by the change making them play for longer periods of time, the sweaty players that are constantly in the public lobbies, constant netcode issues and alot more pushed the player base away

[@TecraX2]

Despite launching with only Objective Based Game Modes, Weapon Leveling was solely based on Kills. This, combined with XP required per Weapon Level, made this an unbearable grind for Casual Players. After the XP adjustment and subsequent introduction of TDM, Weapon Leveling went from one extreme to another, especially thanks to "Quad XP" with 2XP Tokens during 2XP Events (which kind of made it seem pointless to play when there wasn't a 2XP Event)...

[@sooz6092]

He was wrong about pretty much everything he said, they used his name because it looked good but this guy and the entire higher ups behind XD were complete buffoons.

[@goldenwolf_gamingYT]

@@TecraX2 and lets not forget the requirements to unlock new factions

[@goldenwolf_gamingYT]

@@sooz6092 he wouldnt even show us the player count which was the biggest sign for me that he wasn't willing to be transparent like he claimed

[@Alreezy]

XDefiant is fun, but it needed to do a lot more than just market itself as Call of Duty without SBMM.

[@MiketheNerdRanger]

In fact, and call me crazy, but I think it was the fact that it had *no* SBMM that helped kill it.

[@pyrothefriendlyarsonist9195]

​@@MiketheNerdRanger your crazy

[@MiketheNerdRanger]

@@pyrothefriendlyarsonist9195 Cool

[@pyrothefriendlyarsonist9195]

@MiketheNerdRanger that's all, have a good friday

[@Rayuzx]

​@@MiketheNerdRangerYou're not crazy. There is a reason the vast majority competitive games out there have some sort of SBMM.

[@keith3278]

The problems I take with XDefiant are as follows 1) The original (Nov 8th 2011) Modern Warfare 3 problem of "We got flank routes within your flank routes so that way you can flank when your being flanked from this other flank". 2) Infinite sprint in a game that also allows you to toy with the base movement speed of all your weapons; in addition to not having any handicapping factor such as "Adopt the movement speed of your heaviest weapon regardless of which is deployed" 3) The mad-design philosophy, a symptom of the above two points: For a game trying to become a "replacement/calling back the days of CoD from old"; XDefiants map design rarely (if ever) having any powerful-defensiveness makes their above claim come off as... wildly out of touch, in regards to the logic that comprised the source material our devs were emulating.

[@espenbrathen7156]

The game needed better skins to survive. Cod has a lot of cool bundles while Xdefiant's cosmetics suck

[@bobdarrick2628]

Plus CoD actually has good gunplay

[@LukeMason]

I NEVER saw any advertisements for this game. Feels like a trend with failed projects.

[@ShayDeeYT]

Don’t compare to THE FINALS, the finals is about to launch season five arguably it’s biggest one yet. It’s not going anywhere.

[@Imoverherewatchinsomeyoutube]

They should have just kept the game a secret until it was 100 percent ready

[@eternalgamers10]

I stopped playing because I played the beta, and upon release there wasn't enough content straight up, it was all the same from what we played already. Is what killed it for me, I was waiting for more maps, and content, etc to hop back on but that's too bad. Because I actually enjoyed the game, which is rare for me nowadays I feel like.

[@Extirpo]

Still playing Xdefiant every evening, having a good relaxed time. Reminds me much of the early BO CODs. As of now there are few if any netcode issues, and all we wait for is content. The game probabilly would have gotten a foothold around early spring 2025, especially if there were a marketing budget. And here we can touch on the fact that Ubisoft is in such a bad financial state, that the next Assassin's Creed Shadows will be do or die for the firm.

[@Malignantt1]

The thing is you cant make a carbon copy of the same game without it feeling like a knock off, you have to do something different with the genre. Take battlefield for example, that game still has plenty of people playing it though admittedly nowhere near as much as it used too. Here, lets look at the tac shooter genre, you got CS2, valorant, and i guess siege all the same genre, but simultaneously completely different games and playerbases. Now if someone made a carbon copy of one of those games, most likely it would flop after the first months or something

[@paynekiller70]

When the community labeled XD a "COD Killer" it was always going to end bad for ubisoft.

[@82guitarman]

Just when I started to enjoy the game and get in my groove with it they announce it shutting down. There is actually a petition to keep it going.

[@headmk]

Except that The Finals is about to celebrate their 1st year anniversary, Season 5 and PS4 launch...

[@KenshinRell]

Ubisoft has been on the hot seat for years, this is more on the publisher not the game itself. Drift mentioned the finals well the finals is one year in going on season 5 and reported their highest retention rate ever from season 4 also it’s on steam. As a PC player I hated using Ubisoft’s launcher.

[@JuiceManJ91]

The finals is still alive and well, actually grew in season 4. Season5 drops next week 🤙🏾

[@TKN13834i]

I thought they made a fun nostalgic game for old heads like me. But old heads like me are cheap. I got kids and bills which leads into my next point, I just don’t have the time to play like I used to and I tend to fall off of games for months at a time.

[@BIackSkillX]

It was an oldschool game (which is fine), but it also had an outdated content-plan.

[@cesiupro123]

Games should be developed in a way that doesn't give the studio the possibility to shut them down. Activision can't simply shut down Cod 4 on PC because it's not in their power, you have the files on your PC and nobody can stop you from booting up the game, and that's how it should be for every game.

[@gingerandbroke1402]

I'm still playing it, I'm one of those cod boys that didn't go back.

[@youdontknow7190]

It really pays me that Activision once again has no real competition. This is pretty sad.

[@ghostraider4312]

Ubisoft is a company where your game gets killed. Real shame.

[@nukix3128]

Why don’t they just sell the game to another publisher? Is this idea unheard of?

[@Zero3ffect]

Not unheard of but the problem is the game is tied to all Ubisoft IP's so I don't know how that would work.

[@Lazydino59]

Another Ubisoft L, color me surprised

[@atago-neesama296]

Another ubislop live service failure.. seeming normally for ubislop to pump and dump

[@T.R.U.T.H]

Drifter!! Please make a video about the fact that they released all skins and camos for every weapon and operator ever made! It's so amazing!!

[@colt457911]

Honestly I called it the second I saw the first battlepass for the game, XDefiant literally had the worst first battlepass have ever seen a game launch with ever, not to mention if you wanna buy any decent skin pack you're looking at almost twice the price of a Cod bundle and prolly half as cool (subjectively) as a cod bundle. That's my two cents, idk about any other problems the game had, but I can def tell you they never saw a dollar from me, and I'm usually cool tossing 10$ for the first battlepass while a game is still hot

[@nickbreaux2635]

So long as people continue to buy CoD despite how much they hate it, and don’t support competition, we’ll never get another good shooter.

[@michael-jamescaroline9366]

Ubisoft didn’t need another FPS when Siege already exists

[@YaboiBrent07]

As one of those Call of Duty players I was looking for ANYTHING else besides Modern Warfare 3/ Warzone 3. I had 1000 hours on Warzone 3 by the time XDefiant came out and I was one of the first wave of players to get into XDefiant… but it wasn’t what I was looking for… I was desperately craving something more tactical and slower paced (all the tac sprinting and spraying and praying and slide cancelling was driving me crazy) and being a PS5 gamer I didn’t have many options. XDefiant was fun but it was just a different CoD. There is a severe LACK of tactical and extraction shooters on console but then…. Valorant hit console. That was it. I haven’t played Warzone 3 or bought Black Ops 6 or even tried new Warzone because Valorant was EXACTLY what I wanted. I haven’t touched another shooter since Valorant beta hit a few monthes ago. I think especially console devs need to forget trying to make another CoD and get us more slower paced tactical/extraction shooters on console.

[@TangoSuckaa1]

Praying that Ubisoft gets sold and the new owners revive this game it deserves to live

[@davidlance6097]

Hey Driftor - I have some perspective on your take of not many gamers spending money, despite a lot of people playing it. My friend group and I were largely segmented by being on different platforms mid to late 2010’s. MW19 and Warzone changed all that, being fully crossplay and cross progression. We played a LOT.. and purchased a lot of cosmetics along the way. With MW2 and WZ2, those cosmetics did not carry over… we were so jaded by how all that money we spent was now for nothing, we rarely purchase cosmetics now. Perhaps a lot of other players share that sentiment.

[@YT-587]

its sad to see this game die it had potential

[@bobdarrick2628]

No this game had bad gunplay, looked off and it didn’t have much appeal. Besides it having a good amount of maps at launch, modern guns and real names - this game wasn’t special. This news was funny imo. The game was mid. I don’t think it was terrible but no one spoke about it after BO6 came out for a reason. Ubisoft’s main game will be R6S.

[@Steve-si8hx]

The game had bad issues with bullets not doing anything. Never was fixed. Me and all my friends noticed it, and we kept trying it every month or two but it was still exactly the same and it actually seemed it got worse.

[@VPixll]

This game was never the game the community hyped it up to be. Its hilarious how COD channels that cover Call of Duty, primarily are sitting around shocked this game is dead when you treated it like a place holder as you waited for BO6. And what happened now that BO6 has released? its officially dead and overworked Devs are going to loose their jobs for it.

[@FBi_.]

I uninstalled the game a couple of days ago. I really wanted to like it, but one of the things that really messed it up for me with the very annoying FPS spikes I’d get like a two second stutter or delay not sure how to explain it. Also finding matches was a chore. I’d get people joining then leave turning off. Cross platforming only made it worse. I have a very impatient personality so with that I installed the game but now seeing this i’m not surprised ubisoft really fumbled the bag with this one not even ironsight witch was way worse

[@webslinger4733]

@7:10 *Goldeneye brought fps to console and Halo is what revolutionized it. COD has been the biggest for a while but let’s not revise history 🤓

[@Drift0r]

I stand corrected

[@adamolig3865]

Well played, sir

[@Cystus]

Halo was just a niche Xbox game that died when Bungie left.

[@NebLleb]

@@Cystus Okay, Pony.

[@webslinger4733]

@@Cystus yea it’s so niche that Master Chief became the face of Microsoft and they named their Siri counterpart after a Halo character

[@daveoum8586]

Didn't download it because it wasn't on Steam. A shame because there was a decent game in there.

[@lilmike757]

That really sucks. I was going to download it again but never did.

[@NeonXXP]

It was good for a week or two but pretty bare bones and lacked anything to keep me playing. I got really annoyed when I was working toward gold camo and they moved the goal posts.

[@TheRealConflictedGaming]

Let’s be so real, it doesn’t matter how many people played it, it matters how many people are playing it. 5 million people tried the game, but they don’t play the game.

[@umaRFTW]

They need to revive hyperscape. It had insane potential

[@numbah_6]

1:48 Captain Price is screaming at you

[@ghostofthecommentsection]

The evident distinction between the two games you compared - XDefiant and The Finals - is, as you noted, that The Finals didn't fold and give up as soon as player numbers dropped. XDefiant did. My personal bias/opinion is that Ubisoft is a generally horrible company that consistently makes decisions like this, but Ubisoft is far from the only dev that makes decisions like this.