Ubisoft Tells Investors XDefiant Is Off To An “Encouraging Start”

Ubisoft has good news for fans of XDefiant in their latest financial call.

As reported by Insider Gaming, the company named their live service launch as a huge success, and one of the reasons that the company saw $ 316.5 million in revenue in Q1 2024, 5.5 % higher than their target and 8.3 % higher than what they made last year.

CEO and co-founder Yves Guillemot actually named XDefiant first in the initial statement in their press release. He said:

“In a selective market, we delivered a solid start to the year with net bookings above target, reaffirming that we are on the right track.

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.”

Ubisoft then gave this detailed description of how XDefiant ‘s launch worked out.

“XDefiant launched its Season 0 on May 21 and is off to an encouraging start. 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.

Two additional game modes have been added since launch: Team Death Match (by popular demand) and Capture The Flag. The game outperformed expectations thanks to acquisition and strong average revenue per session day.

Beyond Q1, the launch of Season 1 on July 2 marked the beginning of the quarterly roadmap of content updates for the game, that will bring additional factions inspired by iconic Ubisoft franchises, maps, weapons and game modes as well as progressively deploy new engagement features.”

Ubisoft also had favorable things to say about Rainbow Six Siege, Assassin’s Creed, The Crew, and even Skull and Bones. For those of you curious, here’s what Ubisoft said about this February release:

“Skull and Bones™ Season 2, Chorus of Havoc, was released on May 28, bringing improvements to the end-game formula. Engagement and ARPU continue to perform well, driven by the new battle pass and an exclusive Hellfest branded bundle.”

While that’s a bit hard to believe, given the poor critical and fan reception, in the current business climate, if it was really doing poorly, this game must surely have gotten retired, and even some layoffs and studio closures would have happened. We have seen much more popular studios face layoffs this year, after making literal console selling titles.

But then, a lot of fans seem to have also thought that XDefiant is already done after the initial interest has petered down a bit. Perhaps we have to admit that the live service model is more successful for more titles than we give it credit for, and perhaps this needs further investigation on what is going on with the player bases for these games.

In any case, it’s good news for XDefiant, and we’re sure the title is going to continue to have a good launch year.