Highguard, the live-service multiplayer shooter that was introduced at the Game Awards 2025, is shutting down on March 12. Developer Wildlight Studios shared that the sport could be winding down alongside details of its last replace, which embody a brand new character, weapon and talent timber.
“In the present day we’re sharing tough information. We have now made the resolution to completely shut down Highguard on March 12,” Wildlight Studios shared by way of a statement on the Highguard X account. “Since launch, greater than two million gamers stepped into Highguard’s world. You shared suggestions, created content material, and plenty of believed in what we had been constructing. For that, we are deeply grateful. Regardless of the ardour and exhausting work of our crew, we’ve not been ready to construct a sustainable participant base to assist the sport long run. Servers will stay on-line till March 12. We hope you’ll leap in with us yet one more time to present your assist and get these last nice matches in whereas we nonetheless can.”
When Highguard shuts down subsequent week, it can have been accessible to play for a grand whole of 46 days. That is longer than the two weeks Concord received, however tragic for a web-based multiplayer sport that was nonetheless in some type of lively improvement. Wildlight Studios laid off some of its staff not lengthy after Highguard launched, however a smaller crew of builders has been supporting the sport with new content material since then, including issues like a “5v5 raid mode” and in the present day’s last replace.
Whereas it is simple to chalk up Highguard‘s failure to a shrinking urge for food for live-service video games or an incapability to discover an viewers for the sport’s mixture of aggressive hero shooter and MOBA technique mechanics, the actuality is extra sophisticated. The primary trace that Highguard‘s launch may be troubled was the dearth of information or advertising and marketing shared about the sport after its debut at the Recreation Awards. Wildlight Studios’ workers was stuffed with former Respawn staff who shadowdropped Apex Legends to nice success, and Bloomberg reports Wildight’s executives thought they may pull off one thing comparable with Highguard. The distinction is, little was recognized about Apex Legends till after it launched, whereas gamers had over a month to stew on the Highguard trailer and type all types of opinions.
Wildlight’s incapability to preserve gamers coming again — SteamDB shows the sport peaked at over 97,000 concurrent gamers and is now sitting at round 300 — additionally damage its possibilities. Dwindling participant counts reportedly performed a task in one among Wildlight’s buyers, Tencent, pulling funding, which decreased the runway the studio had to proceed working on the sport and sure prompted its layoffs. It could be easy if the lesson right here was for future studios to hand over growing on-line multiplayer video games, nevertheless it actually looks as if not one, however all of those components led to Highguard‘s final demise.
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