XDefiant and former CoD lead quits the games industry after Ubisoft killed their free-to-play shooter

After his project died, Mark Rubin, the lead designer of Ubisoft’s now-defunct free-to-play shooter XDefiant, left the video game industry.

Rubin, a former Call of Duty lead, worked for years creating Ubisoft’s entertaining shooter. Regretfully, the game’s early demise was caused by a small player base despite having reasonably good gameplay.

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Rubin has announced their exit from the video game industry, and as of Tuesday, June 3, 2025, XDefiant is no longer playable on any platform.

Rubin confirmed to fans on social media that he intends to stop working on video games and spend more time with his family. The shooter developer did, however, also outline the specific issues with Ubisoft’s game.

Although the game claimed the “fastest acquisition of players in the first few weeks” for a Ubisoft game, Rubin clarified in the message that “very little marketing” was a major problem for the game.

“Unfortunately, we weren’t acquiring new players after the initial launch, especially after launch, with little to no marketing,” Rubin said.

The developer also explained that the team was struggling with years of “tech debt” and bad netcode that was difficult to fix, and that XDefiant’s Snowdrop Engine—used for The Division 2, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Star Wars Outlaws, and other games—was not built for a proper fast-paced multiplayer shooter.

“Using an engine that wasn’t built for what we were doing, we had crippling tech debt, and we didn’t have the engineering resources to ever correct that,” Rubin stated. “In my opinion, in-house engines are no longer the wise investment they once were, and they are frequently destined to lag behind large engines like Unreal.”

“With the architecture we were working with, we were unable to resolve the dreaded netcode issues that were part of this tech debt,” he added. Therefore, the game performed well for many players with strong network connections (both in terms of speed and consistent dependability), but the engine simply couldn’t handle it if your connection had even the slightest irregularity, and you would have a negative experience. Generally speaking, your network should be able to withstand those difficult times. However, this was a significant problem with XDefiant.

Rubin clarified that although the entire xDefiant team was fired last year, the developers had already planned significant features for the unreleased Season 4 and Season 4 updates. They would have added some “really cool features” that the team wanted to include at launch but was unable to, even though players will never get those seasons.

The developer remarked, “I truly want to thank and honor all of the developers that worked on XDefiant.” Even though the odds were stacked against you, you still managed to create an amazing and enjoyable game! Our maps were among the best ever created for an arcade shooter, and I like to point that out whenever I discuss it. Congratulations to everyone for their accomplishments.

The former CoD lead hopes that someone will “pick up the flag” and advance modern multiplayer as Rubin leaves the game industry. The creator has frequently opposed the skill-based matchmaking and microtransaction hell that are prevalent in contemporary games, but he won’t be the one to address those problems.