Highguard isn't throwing in the towel just yet.
It looks like Highguard isn’t going anywhere just yet, as the game's development team at Wildlight Entertainment confirmed that they are trying to “focus on delivering updates and content to improve.”
After the website of the troubled free-to-play hero shooter went down early Wednesday (18 February), and remains offline as of the time of writing, many among the gaming community have begun to speculate that the game will be shutting down soon. These speculations came almost as the same time as reports alleging that Chinese mega-corporation Tencent has been secretly backing Wildlight Entertainment, the studio behind the game.
According to an X (formerly Twitter) post by CharlieIntel, Wildlight Entertainment addressed the issue on their official Discord after user Yin asked about the website.
In the screenshot, server admin and moderator WL_Coronach replied, “Not sure on the timeframe, but basically [it] needs to be transferred and simplified.” They added that the task is currently “low priority,” particularly since the game’s “reputational damage” has already been done. “Now we just need to focus on delivering updates and content to improve,” WL_Coronach added.
Highguard’s future may look shaky, but updates are still coming
Highguard first hit the spotlight at The Game Awards last December, revealed on stage by host Geoff Keighley instead of the developers themselves. The announcement sparked immediate backlash online, with creators and players openly roasting the game and questioning its direction before anyone had even played it.
Despite the chatter, the game launched with a bang, hitting nearly 100,000 concurrent players on Steam but with an Overwhelmingly Negative on day one, with players criticising its gameplay, balance, and overall design choices.
Within a few days, numbers had dropped to around 8,000 to 9,000 concurrent players on average, pushing the devs to make the community-favourite 5v5 mode a permanent feature.
Then came the blow: Wildlight Entertainment announced massive layoffs that slashed most of the development team. A small “core group” stayed behind to keep Highguard alive, but there was little clarity on how long or how much support would continue.
The studio had promised that the first year of content was “deep in development” before the 26 January launch, and an early February update did show some of that work was happening. Still, the layoffs threw the game’s roadmap, and its future, into serious doubt.
With Wildlight going through so much upheaval in just the past week, it’s anyone’s guess what the next update will bring.
