Ubisoft will close its free shooter XChallengingUbisoft announced on Tuesday. The servers will remain active until June 3, 2025, but the game will no longer be offered for download and player registration will be closed. Despite the sunset, XChallenging Players will have access to season three content at some point in the “near future.” Nearly 300 people (143 at the San Francisco office and 134 at Ubisoft's Osaka and Sydney locations) will be laid off. The other half of XChallenging The production team will transition to other roles at Ubisoft, according to Marie-Sophie de Waubert, studio director and portfolio manager.
“Despite an encouraging start, passionate team work and a committed fan base, we have not been able to attract and retain enough long-term players to compete at the level we seek in the demanding free-to-play game. FPS market,” de Waubert wrote in an internal notice posted on Ubisoft’s website. “As a result, the game is very far from achieving the results necessary to allow for significant further investment, and we are announcing that we will cancel it.”
With XChallenging Following the closure and hundreds of layoffs, Ubisoft said it will completely close its San Francisco and Osaka production studios. Insider Gaming reported that a “skeleton team” will be maintained to maintain XChallenging running until completely closed.
XChallenging Players who purchased the $69.99 Ultimate Founder's Pack will receive a full, automatic refund, according to XChallenging Executive producer Mark Rubin in a letter to the community. All purchases made within the previous 30 days will also be refunded. However, according to Ubisoft's FAQ, “the Founder's Pack and Founder's Pack Elite are not eligible for refunds.” Rubin said players should receive refunds within eight weeks.
XChallenging was released on May 21 of this year, following an announcement of the project in 2021. At launch, the game was apparently a success: it reportedly reached 1 million players within hours of its official launch, according to Insider Gaming. No official player or revenue figures have been released, but Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said during an investor call in September that the game was not meeting expectations. In October, Rubin posted on He wrote that it was “very clear” that there were no plans to close. XChallenging after its fourth season, according to a report from Insider Gaming.
In its most recent earnings report from late October, Ubisoft reported that its sales fell almost 20%, but that its game engagement metrics increased. Ubisoft also reported that it reduced its staff by more than 2,000 people in the previous 24 months, a figure that is likely a mix of layoffs and voluntary departures. Ubisoft employs 18,666 people as of September, and the company is reportedly “on track” to continue cutting costs. (Staff retention, he said, was good, “close to historic levels.”) Star Wars Outlaws underperformed, Ubisoft said, but remained silent on the status of XChallenging – so quiet about the game that one analyst questioned Guillemont about the game's waning success. “XDefiant is behind our expectations, but the games-as-a-service strategy remains critical,” Guillemont said at the time. That line still appears to be true: de Waubert said in the staff notice Tuesday that games as a service remains “a pillar” of Ubisoft's strategy, citing success with Rainbow Six, The Crew and For Honor.