No, the “Thank you everyone who played” is not a message from GameBaba Universe. That was how the developer officially signed the demise of the first-person shooter. It was announced back in December that the game will be fully playable until June 3, 2025. Now, it’s dead!
The servers are now closed – Thank you to everyone who played the game ❤️
XDefiant logging off – o7
— XDefiant (@PlayXDefiant) June 4, 2025
Right from launch, XDefiant struggled in the saturated free-to-play FPS space. However, there were still players who genuinely enjoyed the game. Grant Taylor-Hill of Insider Gaming said, “I wasn’t displeased with XDefiant”.
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“I thought it was a good enough shooter with great pacing, and I enjoyed the abilities given to the players by aligning with one faction or another. It helped that I was genuinely very good at XDefiant, which made me want to play it every so often at least.”
XDefiant was developed by Ubisoft and released in May 2024 across PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Ps5|PS4. The game experienced an initial surge in player numbers after release. Over 1 million players joined in the first three hours. However, that number quickly tanked.
The game struggled to retain players, thereby falling short of Ubisoft’s financial expectations. The developer expected the game to generate significant revenue through in-game purchases—a bet that didn’t pay off. One of the reasons why the in-game items failed to sell was that many players thought they were overpriced. This eventually led to the developer announcing its shutdown last December.
“Thank you for your incredible support and dedication to XDEFIANT,” the developer wrote on X. “We regret to inform you that we are initiating the sunset process starting today, December 3, 2024. As a result, new downloads, player registrations, and purchases will no longer be available.”
The announcement came with a personal heartfelt message from XDefiant’s executive producer, Mark Rubin, who said he was “heartbroken to have to be writing this post” because the game was a “personal passion” for him. You can read the full message here.
Do you feel sad that XDefiant has been permanently shut down? Share your thoughts in the comment box below.
