Highguard Shuts Down Today, Just 45 Days After Launch

Today's the day. Highguard goes offline permanently, and honestly, few could have predicted things would collapse this fast.

Launched on January 26 across PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, the free-to-play raid shooter from Wildlight Entertainment attracted over 2 million players across all platforms in its opening weeks. On Steam alone, the game peaked at nearly 97,249 concurrent players. For a brand-new IP from an unproven studio, those numbers weren't bad at all. And yet, here we are.

By the end of February, that 97k peak had cratered to fewer than 600 daily players on Steam. Players bounced off it fast, citing the 3v3 format as too intense for casual audiences, with large maps that felt hollow and empty for such small team sizes. Former senior designer Alex Graner put it bluntly on the Quad Damage Podcast, saying the game "leaned too far into the competitive scene" and left newcomers with nowhere to ease in.

From Game Awards Spotlight to Servers Offline

Highguard was revealed at The Game Awards 2025 in December, taking the coveted final reveal slot. That spot is usually reserved for big swings. Geoff Keighley gave it to Wildlight, a studio founded by veterans from Apex Legends, Titanfall, and Call of Duty, based on genuine belief in the project rather than any paid deal.

The backlash was near-immediate. Fans expecting something massive weren't thrilled with a 3v3 multiplayer shooter as the night's closer. From that moment, Highguard was fighting perception as much as it was fighting for players.

Then came the silence. Wildlight went quiet on social media for weeks after the reveal, with no marketing push before launch. When they finally shadow-dropped the game in late January, barely anyone knew it was coming.

The cracks showed within days. Two weeks after launch, on February 11, Wildlight confirmed mass layoffs, with reports suggesting only around 20 employees remained. A Bloomberg report later pointed to complex game design, a lack of public playtesting, and what former employees described as studio "hubris" as key contributors to the collapse. Around the same time, Game File reported that Tencent's TiMi Studio Group had been quietly funding the project, and that funding was pulled shortly before the layoffs.

On March 3, Wildlight posted the news everyone saw coming. "We have not been able to build a sustainable player base to support the game long term" they wrote on X. Servers would stay online until March 12. Today.

One Last Update Before the Lights Go Out

To their credit, Wildlight didn't just lock the doors and walk away. They shipped one final patch before shutdown, adding a new Warden, a new weapon, account level progression, and skill trees. Features that, had they shipped at launch, might have changed the conversation. It's a small mercy for the players who stuck around.

Another One for the List

Highguard now sits alongside Concord as one of the most startlingly brief live-service launches in recent memory. Concord shut down just two weeks post-launch. Highguard managed 45 days. The Day Before, Radical Heights, and a growing list of others round out this particular hall of fame nobody wants to be in.

The live-service space keeps claiming casualties, and Highguard is the first big one of 2026. Whether the blame sits with poor launch timing, underbaked design, the loss of Tencent's funding, or all of the above is still being argued. What's not up for debate is that today, the servers go dark, and 2 million players who showed up at some point won't have anywhere to return to.

For a studio that genuinely believed they were building something with staying power, that's a rough way for the story to end.