Just a fortnight after the launch of Highguard, developer Wildlight has laid off the majority of the studio’s employees.
In a statement sent to press, Wildlight confirmed the layoffs:
Today we made an incredibly difficult decision to part ways with a number of our team members while keeping a core group of developers to continue innovating on and supporting the game.
We’re proud of the team, talent, and the product we’ve created together. We’re also grateful for players who gave the game a shot, and those who continue to be a part of our community.
Prior to this, Level Designer Alex Graner took to LinkedIn to start their search for new employment, saying, “Unfortunately, along with most of the team at Wildlight, I was laid off today.” However, it sounds like there is still content that can still be released through the coming weeks and months. Graner continued, “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.”
Tech Artist Josh Sobel was also affected, taking to social media to say, “It was the best team I’ve ever worked with, and I’ve never put so much of myself into a project before.” They added, “I don’t think gamers really understand just how special this group of talented devs was. There were stumbles, as any new team would face, but our ability to execute on goals and pivot at a moment’s notice was unmatched. I am devastated that this team as a complete unit can no longer be.”
Highguard seemingly always had a major uphill battle to survive in a brutal gaming environment. Any kind of PvP live service shooter has to compete with the likes of Fortnite, Call of Duty, Apex Legends and beyond, and while something like Arc Raiders has shown that you can still muscle your way into finding an audience, this feels like the exception to the rule at the moment. Riot Games just launched fighting game 2XKO in January and has also almost immediately pared back the team and made layoffs.
While Wildlight had the huge opportunity of revealing the game at The Game Awards, this massively backfired for the studio. The game was featured as the final announcement of the show, reportedly as a favour from Geoff Keighley who simply liked the game and the studio (which was founded by former Respawn developers). The game was quickly branded as being a “Concord 2” and clearly had convincing to do, but then pretty much every online game gets that label a moment. Unfortunately, the gameplay reveal trailer and deep dive didn’t really manage to turn perceptions around.
Launching on 26th January, Highguard saw 97,000 players try the game out on Steam, per SteamDB, but within days that had dropped to around 10,000 and has now had daily peaks closer to 4,000. Obviously this is just a snapshot of the PC audience and it could be larger on console, but it’s indicative of the game’s slide. Within that time, the studio had tried to quickly react to add things like 5v5 play alongside the 3v3 from launch, and shared a 2026 roadmap, but it hasn’t been enough.
For what it’s worth, we enjoyed our first look at Highguard. Dom said, “Highguard’s first steps into the PvP arena are confident and unashamed, despite what the angry voices on the internet might tell you. The slightly odd mix of Apex Legends, Rainbow Six and He-Man actually makes for a good time, and there’s so much room for more to happen here. That will take time, and I hope that it finds the audience it needs to thrive.”
Source: GameInformer, Garner, Sobel
