Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot appeared to confirm rumors that the company’s free-to-play shooter XDefiant is struggling by confirming that it was “behind expectations.”
A screenshot from XDefiant (2024), Ubisoft
At the end of August, Tom Henderson at Insider Gaming reported that XDefiant was seeing “continuously declining player numbers and lack of player spending.”
He reported that one source informed him that “the game has been struggling to obtain 20,000 concurrent players across all its platforms.”
Another source shared, “They [Ubisoft] would probably be happy with that number.” This suggests that the concurrent player number counts are much lower than 20,000.
In fact, Henderson also shared that if the game does not turn things around by Season 3 it “risks losing its much-needed post-launch support.”
A screenshot from XDefiant (2024), Ubisoft
For comparison other team shooter games such as Apex Legends are regularly above 50,000 concurrent players. Apex Legends clocked in 198,873 in its last 24 hours. Valve’s Deadlock had a 24-hour peak concurrent of 119,315 players in the last 24 hours. Team Fortress 2 had a 24-hour peak of 56,715 concurrent players.
Counter-Strike 2 had over 1.3 million concurrent players in the last 24 hours. PUBG: Battlegrounds had a concurrent player peak of 681,189. Call of Duty had 74,599 peak concurrent players in the past 24 hours.
Overwatch 2 had 52,437 playing in the last 24 hours. Even Ubisoft’s Rainbow Six Siege had 65,866 peak concurrent in the past 24 hours.
A screenshot from XDefiant (2024), Ubisoft
While the exact numbers were not confirmed by Ubisoft, CEO Yves Guillemot did admit that the reason the company lowered its second quarter revenue expectations 30% from €500 million to €350-370 million was due to soft sales for Star Wars Outlaws and XDefiant.
During the company’s most recent Trading Update call, Nicholas Langlet of BNP Paribas questioned, “So the Q2 guidance … is it only Star Wars Outlaws or is there something else underperforming in the portfolio?”
Guillemot responded, “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.”
A screenshot from XDefiant (2024), Ubisoft
This is a drastic shift in tone for Ubisoft and Guillemot. Back during the company’s first quarter sales report he touted the games success which launched its preseason on May 21st.
He said at the time, “The quarter notably saw the launch of XDefiant, that is 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.”
A screenshot from XDefiant (2024), Ubisoft
The report also shared, “The game, that topped viewership charts, acquired more than 10 million players within its first two weeks, with players praising the thrilling, fast-paced gameplay and the map variety.”
It also declared, “The game outperformed expectations thanks to acquisition and strong average revenue per session day.”
Henderson claimed the game had over one million unique players in its first 2.5 hours and over 8 million in its first week.
A screenshot from XDefiant (2024), Ubisoft
What do you make of Guillemot admitting that XDefiant is “behind expectations” for Ubisoft?
