Insider Gaming is back with some troubling rumors about what’s going on behind the scenes at XDefiant.
Before the game even launched, Insider Gaming was reporting on rumors that there is a toxic workplace in the studio that’s making XDefiant, and no less than Mark Rubin is in its center. There is allegedly a boy’s club between the people who are in charge of the game’s production, who have been generally unprofessional and unpleasant to the rank and file.
The atmosphere in the XDefiant studio in Ubisoft San Francisco is apparently so bad that people were already leaving that far back, but it must be said that none of this has been confirmed by Ubisoft or the studio. Subsequently, there have been no lawsuits or similar actions stemming from the allegations so far.
Today, Insider Gaming reports that Ubisoft has put the XDefiant team on notice that they have to get player numbers back up by Season 3. The game launched last May, had its Season 1 last July 2, and announced that Season 2 will launch this September 24. If they follow this monthly schedule broadly, Season 3 should be arriving sometime this November.
No one can take away XDefiant’s successful launch. It had more than 8 million players in its first week, and hit a new record for Ubisoft, when they managed to pick up 1 million unique players in the first 2 and a half hours that it was released.
Ubisoft also touted XDefiant’s launch as an encouraging start, and touted it alongside Skull and Bones as one of the contributors to their Q1 2024 profits. But it seems Ubisoft is losing patience as the team is failing to bring those numbers back. But this is not how Krafton and Epic Games were able to gain their lasting success with PUBG and Fortnite. Those developers did have the patience to endure early jitters in development and their sales, to amass loyal followings, and a reliable income stream as a result.
Insider Gaming claims that at least part of the reason that XDefiant is struggling to keep their momentum is the toxic culture within the studio. Ubisoft allegedly did do an internal investigation, but ultimately chose not to make any changes.
Ubisoft was part of the wave of video game industry layoffs in the past two years, and that included the San Francisco studio working on XDefiant. We should note that Ubisoft may not necessarily be closing the game after less than a year. The threat may really be about replacing Mark Rubin, and even the entire alleged boys’ club, for a management team who can deliver. But Ubisoft could just as well close shop in San Francisco and give the title to one of their many other studios.
Since we really only have Insider Gaming’s word on these rumors, we can’t really say for sure how much of it is true. It will be interesting to see, then, if Mark Rubin or other people at XDefiant’s management do end up leaving the project in time. But we’ll see how it all plays out.
