Executive Producer on @PlayXDefiant at Ubisoft in San Francisco. Previously known for being EP on Call of Duty.
Los Angeles, CA
Joined May 2011
- Tweets9.7K
- Following256
- Followers89.5K
- Likes3.8K
Like this guy just straight lied lol the game's last content patch was less than 2 months later
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.
2
1
172
I wrote that because we were told we'd have the support. And Ubisoft even allocated more resources to the project. So no i didn't lie it just that Ubisoft changed its mind not long after. Ubisoft was going through some financial issues, hence the Tencent deal, so it was an understandable decision. What I wrote was what I knew to be true at the time but the industry is more volatile than ever and things can change fast.
1
8
404
People are ganging up on Epic for their "programming is hard" post.
Yeah, you know what, it fucking is.
Have you tried it? Have you learned C++ or Assembly and coded anything worth looking at or playing?
If not, STFU.
79
510
25,221
It's still crazy to me that #XDefiant became the fastest-growing game in Ubisoft history.
Fastest ever to 5 million players and topped out over 15 million players.
That was done not by fancy marketing campaigns but by pure word of mouth. And yea free-to-play of course made that possible but if I did it again I would prefer paid over free-to-play.
But it was absolutely tragic that we couldn't get the netcode in a good enough place and that our cosmetic content was such a struggle.
But I really do miss this game and I played it almost everyday for 6 years. And I still miss playing it.
XDefiant was 100 times better than Call of Duty. Here's why:
✅ No strict SBMM
✅ Classic movement
✅ No prone, meaning fewer campers
✅ No annoying killstreaks
✅ No aggressive microstransaction push, despite being F2P
Bringing together the best of Ubisoft's worlds into one game, it definitely didn't deserve to be sunset.
Idk the rules surrounding this kind of thing, but slide me a dev kit and I'll showcase everything you guys weren't able to 👀
People love looking at the old COD4 builds. The nighttime maps, the evolution of the guns, even the main menu theme
1
101
4,329
@PixelsofMark my fellow community of gamers love what you guys managed to do with XDefiant even with the limitations and pressure you and the team were under. Many of us still miss the game to this day. My imagination tells me that you're creating an arcade shooter in secret.
You made the right call on that one, family always comes first. I get messages to this day about how much people miss the game and what could of been. Thank you, Mark and to the team you worked with.
1
8
1,457
I really loved playing XDefiant. It had the same pure fun feel I got from the early CoDs. The tech hurdle unfortunately was too high. I asked to use another engine in the beginning but was told no. Although I wish I had asked harder. I think we did amazing things with few resources. And the game when the servers went down had so much and yet was still barely complete with what we had planned. But unfortunately Ubisoft wasn't in the position to support our game and we were an expensive team being in SF. I don't blame them for that. I do miss the team though. I hope everyone is doing well.
Is there ANY hope of XDefiant servers being brought back up? I understand the cost of running them, but the game is sooooooo missed 😞❤️🩹 @PixelsofMark @ACHES
@PixelsofMark bonjour 👋
Ma question serait la suivante ce serait possible d’avoir une version hors-ligne de XDefiant pour pouvoir potentiellement faire un projet communautaire ?
2
4
2,167
@PixelsofMark is this true have you been working on this at all ?
BREAKING: XDefiant is reportedly re-releasing on April 20, 2026, after a massive game overhaul over the last year.
It will launch as a premium title this time, priced at $67.67. Are you excited to play it?
ALT Happy April's Fool
1
2,626
Hello Everyone,
So here it is! Our last content patch for XDefiant. It’s obviously a bittersweet moment but I just want to say how proud I am of everyone on this team that did everything they could to make this game and all of its amazing content.
Ubisoft has not only allowed a small team to stay on and continue working to get our Season 3 content out the door, but we’ve also been able to add some extra content to this release from future seasons. So, we have our Season 3 content plus some of the content from Season 4, 5, 6,7 and even Season 8.
We are adding 3 new factions this patch with the Assassin’s of course that was planned for Season 3 but also Wolves and Omega Force from Seasons 4 and 5 respectively.
We are also adding 6 new Arena Maps and 3 new Linear Maps from future seasons. So along with the 4 new maps from Season 3 that’s a total of 13 new maps. And I have to say the team really went all out on these amazing new maps. If you do anything at all, you need to check out the new Rayman map that was going to be part of an epic event takeover in Season 4. It even has it’s own mode with Lum Hunt.
We’ve added a brand-new experience called Tactical that is all about corridor style maps with the first mode in that experience called Defuse; a 1-life classic Bomb mode.
We’ve added the ability to play against Bots in a way that would have allowed players to warm up or just chill out with less pressure but still gaining XP.
There are a few new weapons that were supposed to come in future seasons as well. Along with new cosmetics that have all been unlocked for everyone. There is new progression mechanics with Faction Mastery and Badges that the community would have to come together to discover how they all can be earned.
All of this and more are our last tribute to all of the hard-working people that made this game and to all of the fans who have been with us through this journey. Not all journeys end well but we can all be proud of what we accomplished.
I wish everyone who worked on this game directly or indirectly the best for their future endeavors. And the same goes for all of the fans who played our game, who streamed it, or who worked to build the XDefiant community.
Thank you all!
Mark
Link to Patch Notes:
xitter.twitterapi.xyz/PlayXDefiant/status/18…
Saw the rumor from Bloomberg that we were working on Splinter Cell game before switching to Xdefiant. I can say that is not true. When I got to Ubisoft they had been working on a game for a year that was very ambitious but was struggling to find the fun. And it was NOT a Splinter Cell game. I then canceled that one and let the team pitch any game ideas they wanted. There were some cool ones but I felt the scope/difficulty was too hard on some ideas so we stuck with an arena shooter and we found the fun quickly. So no we didn't pivot off Splinter Cell to make XDefiant. Now maybe they were thinking about working on Splinter Cell before I got there but it was never a thing while I was there. My experience with Ubisoft was they are very open to whatever the studio wants to do which is great but I do wish we could have used external engines.
