Highguard to Go Offline After Rapid Player Drop
High Guard found itself in the spotlight of online video game discourse last December The Game Awards showwhen host Geoff Keighley made a special intro for the game’s trailer, which came very late in the show, a time reserved for some of the biggest reveals of the evening. The next day, questions were asked about what this free multiplayer shooter from a new studio was. Now, less than two months after its release, Highguard is being shut down.
Developer Wildlight Entertainment posted on Tuesday on X about the closure of Highguard. The developer says it was unable to get the player base it needed to launch the game and will be shutting down the servers on March 12.
“Despite the passion and hard work of our team, we have not been able to build a sustainable player base to support the game long-term,” the studio said. “The servers will remain online until March 12. We hope you will join us once again to show your support and hold these last big matches while we still can.”
In his Highguard reviewDavid Lumb of CNET described the game as a first-person shooter that featured the skirmish combat found in multiplayer online battle arena games and the core raid mechanics found in titles like Rainbow Six: Siege. The developers described this new mash-up as a “raid shooter.” Wildlight has since admitted that the game’s initial showing at The Game Awards did not properly represent the game.
When the game released on January 26, Highguard got off to a strong start. Nearly 100,000 people were playing the game on PC at launch, according to SteamDB. This number decreased significantly in the days that followed, and by the last week of February it was down to just over 400 per day. Things looked bleak for Wildlight for most of February as player numbers dwindled. On February 11, members of the developer team posted news of layoffs on LinkedIn, and the game’s website was shut down on February 17.
Highguard combined several mechanics, including summoning mounts and shooting guns while mounted.
“Negative press is a hard stench to clean up,” Lumb said today. “When players decide to hate a game, they sink it, especially if it doesn’t have years of experience like No Man’s Sky.”
On the r/games subreddit, in a thread about the announcement, posters shared their issues with the game. Some pointed out dated visuals, while others said the gameplay was confusing and in dire need of polish.
Former Wildlight developers told Bloomberg on February 26 that they felt it was the “hubris” of the studio’s management that led to the game’s demise. The studio was made up of former members of the team that developed Titanfall, Titanfall 2, and Apex Legends, and they were unaware of how much the gaming landscape had changed since those games were released.
Wildlight says it plans to continue updating the game. A final update will be available Wednesday or Thursday and will include a new character, new weapon, account-level progression, and skill trees.
