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

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

XDefiant creator Mark Rubin has quit the games industry as a whole after Ubisoft shut down his latest free-to-play game.

videogamer.com

TL;DR: Mark Rubin, the ex-Call of Duty lead who helmed Ubisoft’s free-to-play shooter XDefiant, has quietly exited the games industry after the title shut down on June 3, 2025. Despite record-fast early player acquisition, the game never reached critical mass due to “very little marketing,” crippling tech debt in the Snowdrop engine, and unsolvable netcode issues that tanked multiplayer reliability.

Rubin praised his team’s “fun, terrific” maps and teased unrealized Season 4 features, but admitted they lacked the resources to fix fundamental engine flaws. He now plans to spend more time with family—while hoping someone else picks up the flag to push modern multiplayer forward without resorting to microtransaction overload and punishing skill-based matchmaking.