Ubisoft’s XDefiant Has Surpassed 11 Million Players Since Its Preseason Launch

Arguably Ubisoft’s biggest franchise over the last decade plus has been Assassin’s Creed, with no signs of that changing anytime soon. Of course that doesn’t mean Ubisoft is only an Assassin’s Creed factory (yet).

One of Ubisoft’s biggest swings in a while has been its recent FPS XDefiant, a 6v6 arena shooter that combines different Ubisoft franchises and mashes them together for a hero-shooter mixed with some Overwatch game modes and Call of Duty TTK/weapon progression system.

And it’s free-to-play, so all its money gets made with a battle pass. Considering all the other free-to-play games like it that have crashed and burned in the last few years, XDefiant is a huge swing even with the backing of a big publisher like Ubisoft.

For now at least it seems like players are with Ubisoft on XDefiant. According to Ubisoft chief executive officer Yves Guillemot in an internal interview Ubisoft conducted with its own CEO, the game has reached 11 million players since its preseason launch.

In response to a question asking Guillemot about his thoughts on GaaS (Games As A Service) titles and how it is difficult to succeed, Guillemot revealed that 11 million-milestone as an example of a strong start with a lot of work still to come for the team.

“We need to continue to listen closely to our players and make well-informed decisions on where to focus our efforts, because if you succeed at GaaS, you can succeed for the long-term. Let’s look at XDefiant.

There’s a lot of work to do, but it was able to attract 11 million players in a short time. And that number will increase with all the work done by the team to ensure Season One brings a lot more to the existing experience. It’s about making the right choices and sticking to them.”

XDefiant has yet to launch its first official season which is set to kick off on July 2, 2024. It’ll be the first batch of major changes to the game and new content drop, so we’ll see how those 11 million players take to it.

With the financial backing of Ubisoft and the IP power of things like Splinter Cell, Far Cry, The Division and Watch Dogs all weaved into XDefiant, on paper it should be able to standout from the crowd.

But the chances of Ubisoft permanently cutting their own piece of the live service pie currently dominated by games like Call of Duty or Fortnite remains slim.

While it’s a great milestone for XDefiant to hit 11 million players, it’ll be more interesting (and telling) to see how it’s doing just a year from now.

Source – [Ubisoft]