Ubisoft’s free-to-play sports game Roller Champions could be the next in a series of cancellations as the studio looks to cut costs.

According to recent rumours, Ubisoft is preparing to cancel its free-to-play roller-skating sports game Roller Champions after just three seasons. The game has seen a significant drop in interest since its release, which may be a contributing factor to the early cancellation.

Roller Champions was announced at E3 with an early demo back in 2019, although the game would not be officially released until three years later.

Due to a series of delays, Ubisoft’s free-to-play roller derby-inspired sports game has only recently become available to primarily positive reception. The game features two teams of three skating in circles as they throw the ball around the hoop with tackles and passes for points. Like many live-service games, Roller Champions uses the usual cosmetic-only microtransaction system to generate revenue and features a “roller pass” battle ticket that is split into free and premium reward tracks.

In a recent episode of The Xbox Era podcast, Jeff Grubb, a journalist for the popular gaming website Giant Bomb, relayed a message from an unnamed source that “Roller Champions will be cancelled after season three”. No further information on the authenticity of the source has been revealed at this time, but Jeff Grubb noted that it was “breaking news”. Presumably, he would not have brought up the subject of the claim was not substantiated.

Ubisoft has not yet commented on the possibility of an early cancellation of Roller Champions.

At the time of writing, the game is averaging around 200 views across 14 channels on Twitch, ranking 473rd in terms of ideas. By comparison, the most watched games on Twitch regularly average hundreds of thousands of viewers. If Twitch viewership is anything to go by, the game struggles to maintain player and viewer interest.

The cancellation of Roller Champions should come as no surprise after Ubisoft recently cancelled four other games, including Splinter Cell VR, Ghost Recon Frontline and two other unnamed works-in-progress, in order to cut costs. With the recent cancellations and the postponement of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora until 2023-2024, Ubisoft will need to deliver something awe-inspiring to regain the trust of the gaming community.

Source: VGC