Troubled free-to-play shooter, Highguard, is officially shutting down, little over six weeks after its high-profile launch, developer Wildlight Entertainment has confirmed.
Highguard launched on January 26 following its bold announcement at The Game Awards in December, but despite initially reaching millions of players, according to its developer, player numbers quickly plummeted, and Wildlight laid off most of its development team the following month.
Now, the California-based studio has confirmed that Highguard will shut down entirely on March 12.
In an update posted on social media, it said the game had not been able to attract enough players to sustain development long-term. One final update will be released this week, it said.
“Today we’re sharing difficult news. We have made the decision to permanently shut down Highguard on March 12,” Wildlight wrote. “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 post continues: “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.”
Highguard was announced with great fanfare at the close of December’s The Game Awards. Developed by veterans of the hero shooter genre, the game combines FPS mechanics with rideable mounts and ‘raid’ mechanics, with teams tasked with breaching each other’s bases.
After a designer claimed that “most” of the team had been laid off last month, Wildlight subsequently confirmed that it had let go “a number of team members while keeping a core group of developers to continue innovating on and supporting the game”.
According to a Bloomberg report on Highguard’s development, gaming giant Tencent had quietly funded WIldlight Entertainment, and the studio’s initial wave of staff cuts came after the conglomerate decided to pull out, due to the game’s soft launch.
The shooter had been in development for several years before it was announced, and had a year of post-launch content already revealed, before today’s shutdown news.
Highguard’s failure again highlights the volatility of the triple-A and live service games market. With the majority of consumers entranced in big, established ‘forever’ games like Fortnite and Call of Duty, new launches like Highguard are riskier than ever, especially with the significant investment required to build them.
The previous most notable failed launch was Sony’s Concord, which was shut down two weeks after its launch in August 2024, despite significant investment from PlayStation.
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