Ubisoft's free-to-play shooter XDefiant looked quite promising when it arrived earlier this year in May, but it's entered into an overcrowded market dominated by heavy-hitters like Call of Duty.
Even since then, there have been claims about the game dropping off completely, and now the title's executive producer Mark Rubin has officially stated there are "no plans" to shut down after the fourth season of the game.
Apparently the team is already focused on its "Year 2 plans" and the idea is to get the game in a "better place" before spending big on marketing to attract new fans and bring back players who may have left. Here's the message in full:
"To be crystal clear there are NO plans to shut down after season 4. I've literally been in meetings as of last week to discuss our Year 2 plans. But, right now we are super focused on improving the technical experience (which includes netcode) and adding more content for Seasons 3 & 4. We have done very little marketing so yes our numbers are down but that is just to give the team the time to get the game in a better place before we do bigger spends on marketing to bring new players to the game and to bring back players that have left."
This follows a blog post in September reassuring players the game was "absolutely not dying". Here's part of it:
"Alright, with that out of the way I just want to quickly address the status of the game. i.e. is the game dying? No, the game is absolutely not dying. We know there are things we need to improve like Netcode/Hitreg and adding more content to progression, but the game is doing well. We just want it to do better...Ubisoft is very much behind us and has allocated more resources to the team in order for us to do that."
This latest update on the future of XDefiant follows a report earlier this month about Ubisoft considering a buyout after the release of Star Wars Outlaws and the sudden delay of Assassin's Creed Shadows. If you do want to give this team-based shooter a go, it's a free download on Xbox and other platforms like PlayStation and PC.