Highguard becomes the latest PvP project to fall victim to the industry’s brutal reset

Highguard was first revealed during The Game Awards show in 2025. Coming in as the last announcement of the night, much praise was laid on the game by the host, Geoff Keighley. The game sought to shake up a stagnant FPS landscape by combining multiple genres with a raid-based 3v3 combat system.

Now, after a tumultuous launch that saw mixed results across Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation, it seems that Highguard developer Wildlight Entertainment has laid off most of its staff.

In a post on LinkedIn, Alex Graner, a level designer on Highgaurd, posted the following:

“Unfortunately, along with most of the team at Wildlight, I was laid off today. This one really stings as there was a lot of unreleased content I was really looking forward to that I and others designed for Highguard.”

Alex had previously worked on Battlefield 6, Apex Legends, and other smaller projects at Respawn. Needless to say, Alex and others on the Wildlight team had definite skills when it comes to creating wonderful FPS experiences. As it went with Highguard, those skills have seemingly failed to transition into commercial success.

Highguard had a mountain to climb even before the game launched. After being revealed as the final piece during The Game Awards show, gamers booed in the comments sections of YouTube and other social media sites.

Players wanted nothing to do with the game, claiming it was another faceless shooter attempt in the same vein as Concord. Drawing similarities to one of the worst disasters in modern gaming before launch is not something any developer wants to face, but Wildlight Entertainment did so anyway.

Launching on Steam to mostly negative reviews, it was clear Highguard wasn’t only suffering from conclusions drawn previously, but rather, the game itself was a complete mess. Riddled with bugs and gameplay that some players felt lacked any sense of urgency (myself included), it managed to reach nearly 100k concurrent players on Steam.

Over the following days, Highguard would drop to just over 11k players. In a desperate attempt to save the game, the development team opened a time-limited event that raised the player count from 3v3 to 5v5, in hopes that games would become more active.

Some praise started rolling in, as players clamoured forums with, “This is what the game should have launched with!” However, it was too little too late, as the player count would continue to fall, all the way to where it is today, a staggeringly low number of 3,822 players.

The future of Highguard

What this means for Highguard going forward is fairly obvious. It’s possible some of the content Alex mentioned in his LinkedIn post could still see the light of day, but with most of the team having been laid off, it seems the game is being put on life support.

I don’t see a future where Highguard manages to add anything substantial to its coffers going forward, and if it does, they'll have to convince a player base that's seemingly already forgotten about the title.

We'll make sure to update this post as more information comes in about the layoffs at Wildlight Entertainment, as well as any future news about the game itself.

Highguard Studio, Wildlight Entertainment, has laid off most of its developers despite the studio's attempts to revive the game. Do you think Highguard ever stood a chance?

Drop your thoughts, theories, and wish‑lists below — especially if you want to see more of these unexpected arrivals.

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