Video game publisher Ubisoft plans to lay off more than 150 employees as part of its plan to close a studio in San Francisco that maintains XDefiant, its free-to-play first-person shooter.
The move will affect 152 workers, according to documents Ubisoft filed with the state. In a statement released Tuesday, the company said XDefiant did not attract enough online players to warrant dedicating more resources to the game.
“Despite an encouraging start, the team’s passionate work, and a committed fan base, we’ve not been able to attract and retain enough players in the long run to compete at the level we aim for in the very demanding free-to-play FPS market,” the company said. “As a result, the game is too far away from reaching the results required to enable further significant investment, and we are announcing that we will be sunsetting it.”
In California, companies are typically required to file WARN documents with the state in the case of mass layoffs. According to those documents, employees at Ubisoft’s local office will be permanently laid off on Feb. 3. Positions affected include engineers, audio specialists, producers and artists.
The company released XDefiant earlier this year to mixed reviews. Free-to-play, competitive online shooters have exploded in popularity since Epic Games released Fortnite in 2017. And while Ubisoft is behind such successful game franchises as Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry, XDefiant had to compete with massively popular equivalents like Valorant and Apex Legends.
In its statement, Ubisoft said new downloads, player registrations and purchases are no longer available, but said Season 3 will still release and that the game’s servers will remain active until June of next year.
Apart from shuttering its studio in the city’s SoMa neighborhood, Ubisoft will also be closing a studio in Osaka, Japan, and will be “ramping down” a studio in Sydney, Australia, as part of its decision to sunset XDefiant. Between its Osaka and Sydney studios, the company will be laying off 134 workers, it said.