XDefiant’s Farewell: A Bittersweet Goodbye to Ubisoft’s FPS

Sure, let’s dive right in.

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So, XDefiant. Yeah, that game. Honestly, it felt like it was always rowing upstream — and the water was boiling. Ubisoft, the brains behind it, had been tripping over its own feet with a string of meh games. Big names like Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed were there to lean on, but — here’s the catch — the world of live service games is like a relentless treadmill. Everyone’s screaming for fresh, new stuff. And bam, it was up against Call of Duty’s Black Ops 6, which practically had folks throwing parades. So, shutting down quickly after, uh, barely a year? Not a shocker, really. Maybe it was fated? Or maybe someone jinxed it? Who knows. But hey, even if it wasn’t a top-tier FPS masterpiece, it kept me hooked for a few months. Reminded me a bit of the good ol’ Call of Duty days.

Now, setting aside Black Ops 6 for a sec — I’m all over it right now but bear with me — CoD had hit this weird, boring phase for a while. My take, of course. Modern Warfare 2, followed by that slightly-better-but-still-eh Modern Warfare 3, had me dreaming of CoD’s glory days. And then came XDefiant, promising a trip down memory lane. Smaller maps, cool gunplay, neat loadouts. What’s not to like?

Okay, so, launching XDefiant was like taking the long way around. It finally dropped in May, right when Modern Warfare 3 was barely hanging on. The game had its hiccups — hit registration was kinda wobbly. But surprise! I got hooked, even if the internet gossip already wrote it off.

Season 1 was, let’s say, pretty wild. Bugs were nibbling away here and there, but I knew deep down that I wasn’t gonna spend years on XDefiant, especially with new CoD games looming and other shooters like Destiny 2 hollering for attention. But hey, it earned a spot in my multiplayer rotation anyway.

But, oh boy, late 2024 was rough. As Black Ops 6 started stealing the spotlight, XDefiant’s unresolved issues were like a thorn in its side. People, me included, slowly drifted away. Pressure was squeezing the dev team like, I dunno, an overripe tomato? And October rumors said XDefiant had two seasons tops to turn things around. Spoiler alert: it didn’t even get that far.

Fast forward to December, Ubisoft throws in the towel. Game’s getting yanked off storefronts faster than you can blink, but if you already had it, lucky you; you got six more months with its final season. It was like a clearance sale, dumping all the planned content at once.

With today being June 2, XDefiant’s last hurrah, I dove back in for a few farewell rounds. Thought I’d be all teary-eyed, ready to say goodbye, but instead, just felt… melancholy? After months of radio silence, slipping back into XDefiant’s groove was oddly comforting. It felt familiar. Like slipping on an old, cozy sweater. Surprisingly bright, considering the curtain was about to fall.

Okay, okay, I don’t have any fancy player stats here — hard to tell if a crowd surged back for one last ride — but matches were easy to find, and the farewell chatter online has been buzzing. Sure, some folks label XDefiant as another ‘Ubisoft fail,’ and, yeah, I get that angle. But come on, it did some things right. It deserved a longer life, a fighting chance to teach something to its FPS rivals. Maybe it didn’t ‘kill’ CoD or anything, but it gave them a nudge to not take life too seriously — and maybe to look back, not just forward.

So, here we are. End of the line for XDefiant. Gonna miss ya, buddy. Whether you loved it or didn’t give it a second glance, there’re tons of other free PC and multiplayer games out there beckoning.

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