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Developer Wildlight Entertainment has announced that its free-to-play multiplayer siege shooter Highguard will be shutting down permanently. The game launched less than two months ago, on January 26.
Since its reveal as the final world premiere at The Game Awards 2025 garnered a mixed reaction from viewers, Highguard has had an uphill battle winning over players put off by its style of game and general live-service fatigue. Highguard launched with an initially strong player base, but those numbers rapidly dwindled. Despite announcing a year-long content roadmap and releasing substantial post-launch updates, Wildlight would layoff the majority of its employees only a couple of weeks after launch. Highguard’s long-term health has been in question since, with today’s news serving as an unsurprising but still unfortunate turn of events.
Wildlight posted a message to its social channels stating that Highguard did not garner a large enough player base for Wildlight to support the game long-term. Highguard’s servers will remain online until March 12, and the studio will release a final update before then that adds a new playable Warden, a new weapon, skill trees, and account level progression. This patch is expected to arrive either tonight or tomorrow.
You can read their full statement below:
Today we’re sharing difficult news. We have made the decision to permanently shut down Highguard on March 12.
Since launch, more than 2 million players stepped into Highguard’s world. You shared feedback, created content, and many believed in what we were building. For that, we are deeply grateful.
Despite the passion and hard work of our team, we have not been able to build a sustainable player base to support the game long term. Servers will remain online until March 12th. We hope you’ll jump in with us one more time to show your support and get those final great matches in while we still can.
The team is excited to release one final game update to enjoy in the remaining life of the game. We’ll be adding a new Warden, a new weapon, account level progression, and skill trees! Full patch notes are coming, and we’re targeting tonight or tomorrow morning for patch release.
From all of us at Wildlight, thank you for playing, for supporting us, and for being part of Highguard’s story.
Wildlight’s message does not clarify the status of the studio itself, such as whether it will remain operational. According to a recent Bloomberg report chronicling Highguard’s tumultuous development history, less than 20 employees remain at the developer. Wildlight was formed by former developers from Respawn Entertainment who had worked on Apex Legends and Titanfall. Although Wildlight is an independent studio, it was later revealed that Highguard was at least partially funded by Chinese megacorporation Tencent.
In our review, we scored Highguard a 7.5 out of 10 with editor-in-chief Matt Miller writing about the game’s flawed – and now unrealized – potential: “The game has a long way to go to be at its best, but for competitive shooter players looking for a departure from expectation, there’s good reason to be hopeful about Highguard’s future.”
Highguard’s demise is eerily similar to the disastrous life cycle of 2024’s Concord, another live-service multiplayer shooter that was similarly lambasted by video game fans (justifiably or otherwise) before release and underperformed to the point that it was shuttered barely two weeks after its launch (with its developer, Firewalk Studios, shut down soon after). It’s another sobering reminder of how volatile and nigh-impenetrable the live-service game market has seemingly become, and here’s hoping the remaining team at Wildlight is somehow able to rebound.
