Three red flags for the game industry after Ubisoft’s latest shutdown

Is the discontinuation of XDefiant cause for alarm? Perhaps. And not just for Ubisoft.

Ubisoft’s recent discontinuation of its Call of Duty competitor XDefiant was a typically bleak bit of news in a gaming year full of job cuts, studio shutdowns and game cancellations.

In one swift stroke, Ubisoft…

• Announced the likely layoffs of up to 277 employees in San Francisco, Osaka and Sydney.

• Announced the closure of its San Francisco and Osaka development offices.

• Bailed on a game that it had launched in the same calendar year.

One week later, three things stand out about the move: 1) the unusual speed with which Ubisoft killed the game, 2) the dramatic collapse of XDefiant’s player base, and 3) the shutdown of a studio in California, a state that one expert tells Game File, accounts for a third of all gaming layoffs worldwide in 2024.

Let’s start with a chart…