Def Leppard once sang that it’s better to burn out than to fade away, but in the case of video games – and especially their developers – that’s really not the best case scenario. Unfortunately burning out was the case for XDefiant, the Ubisoft shooter that announced its shutdown in 2024, has now officially gone offline.

“The servers are now closed,” reads the game’s final tweet. “Thank you to everyone who played the game. XDefiant logging off – o7.”

Not only has the game shuttered but its executive producer, Mark Rubin, has officially left Ubiosft – and the entire games industry. “I’ve decided to leave the industry and spend more time with my family so unfortunately you won’t be hearing about me making another game,” Rubin wrote on Twitter. “I do care passionately about the shooter space and hope that someone else can pick up the flag that I was trying to carry and make games again that care about the players, treat them with respect and listen to what they have to say.”

Rubin also opened up about the challenges faced by the game’s development cycle, including wrangling with the tech debt of an engine that wasn’t capable of making the game type his team wanted, a lack of marketing during and after launch, and a lack of resources needed to keep a live service shooter online. Still, Rubin also talks on the talent of the devs he worked with and the impact XDefiant made in the shooter sub-genre.