The French publisher puts XDefiant in a particularly funny position, slipping another release window after more than two and a half years since Ubisoft announced it.

The last we heard about the free-to-play game was that it would be released in the last fiscal year. At the latest on March 31st. XDefiant missed that, even though it was announced for July 2021, but then it got such bad feedback that the French publisher rescheduled it, and then it resurfaced last April. Originally scheduled for release last summer, it was pushed back to October and then to an unspecified date. In February, Ubisoft said in their annual report that it would be out by the end of March, but that didn’t happen.

Here’s their statement from Twitter: “Defiants, first and foremost, thank you for your continued support of XDefiant. We are proud to have such a passionate community and thank you for participating in our testing phases, including our Insider Sessions. This game has always been community-first, with player feedback as our top priority. While we had hoped to go live by the end of March, there are still a few improvements we need to test before then.

We’re finalizing preparations for a 12-hour server test session that will take place worldwide on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. The goal of this test is to stress our servers and get critical data to prepare us for launch. We need your help to test our servers as much as possible! As always, feedback on your experience is important to us. After this short test, we expect to be able to set a launch date and share more about the exciting content XDefiant has to offer in the future! Thanks again for sticking with us. We will be back when we are ready to share more news,” Ubisoft wrote. And no, they didn’t say when the tests would be. LOL!

And Ubisoft also let some people go. Most of the forty-five layoffs were in the Global Publishing and Asia-Pacific divisions. The goal is to streamline operations, so cheaper labor is what Yves Guillemot’s company wants. Guillemot told GameSpot: “Over the past few months, every team within Ubisoft has been looking at ways to streamline our operations and increase our collective efficiency so that we are better positioned for long-term success. As part of this, we announced today that we are further reorganizing our Global Publishing Central and APAC structures to be more efficient and agile in the face of market changes. These changes will affect a total of 45 positions. These are not decisions taken lightly, and we are providing full support to our colleagues affected. We also want to express our deepest gratitude and respect for their many contributions to the company.”

It’s kind of ridiculous what Ubisoft is doing.

Source: PCGamer, VGC, GameSpot

Update on XDefiant- pic.twitter.com/kVBt9GlQvn

— XDefiant (@PlayXDefiant) March 29, 2024