Highguard: Inside the Tumultuous Launch and Aftermath
▼ Summary
– Wildlight Entertainment’s first game, Highguard, launched after a surprise reveal but saw its player count and Steam reviews drop quickly despite a strong initial concurrent player count.
– The studio laid off most of its 100-person staff roughly two weeks after launch, leaving fewer than 20 developers to support the game with post-launch patches.
– The studio was founded by ex-Respawn developers motivated by profit-sharing, after feeling they did not adequately share in Apex Legends’ multi-billion dollar revenue.
– Despite positive internal and external testing, leadership rejected pre-launch public playtests, opting for a surprise launch strategy similar to Apex Legends, which backfired as online reception soured pre-release.
– As a free-to-play title dependent on player retention for revenue, Highguard’s future is uncertain with its drastically reduced development team, though the game remains live and updated.
The launch of Highguard, the debut title from Wildlight Entertainment, serves as a stark case study in the volatile world of live-service gaming. Following a high-profile reveal at The Game Awards 2026, the free-to-play raid shooter saw a promising surge of over 100,000 concurrent players on Steam at launch. However, player counts rapidly declined, leading to a “mixed” review status on the platform and, just two weeks post-launch, devastating layoffs that reduced the studio’s staff from 100 to under 20 developers. The small remaining team has since released two significant patches, but the game’s long-term viability remains uncertain.
The studio’s origins trace back to a group of developers from Respawn Entertainment. After witnessing the massive financial success of Apex Legends, which generated billions in revenue, some creatives felt the rewards did not adequately reach the teams who built it. This inspired the founding of Wildlight, with a core promise of a profit-sharing model to attract talent. Their initial project was a survival game akin to Rust, but it eventually pivoted into the raid shooter that became Highguard. Funding assistance came from Tencent’s TiMi Studio Group, a detail only confirmed publicly weeks after the game’s release.
Internal and external playtests during development reportedly received positive feedback. Yet, according to sources, some team members expressed concerns that these tests were not truly reflective of a live environment. In these controlled sessions, developers were on hand to explain mechanics and encourage communication, conditions unlikely to be replicated with the general public. Several employees advocated for a public beta or open playtest to gather more authentic data, but studio leadership rejected the idea.
Wildlight’s executives aimed to replicate the surprise launch strategy that worked so well for Apex Legends, announcing the game and releasing it just weeks later without any public hands-on period. This decision backfired significantly. Online reception soured almost immediately after the reveal, with the game becoming a subject of memes and unfavorable comparisons to other failed live-service shooters even before its January 26 launch date. Upon release, it failed to impress critics and players, earning middling scores like a 7.5 from Game Informer.
The rapid decline in active players posed an existential threat to the free-to-play title, whose revenue model depends entirely on retaining a large audience to sell cosmetics and other digital items. The subsequent layoffs were a direct result of this poor performance, leaving a skeleton crew to maintain the live game. While Highguard remains online and is receiving updates, the aftermath highlights the immense risks of high-stakes live-service development and the critical importance of community trust and testing prior to launch.
(Source: Game Informer)
