Highguard Developer Wildight Entertainment Announces Layoffs Less than a Month After Release

There was a round of layoffs High Guardian developed by Wildlight Entertainment. This news comes less than a month later High GuardianA questionable launch that leaves the future of PvP raid shooters in a potentially dangerous place.

Since its discovery, High Guardian was at the center of controversy. The game was revealed as “the last thing” at The Game Awards 2025, to the dismay of gamers who were disillusioned with live service titles. Despite the initial negative reception High Guardian was released on January 26 and peaked at 97,249 players on Steam, according to SteamDB data. Unfortunately, it failed to live up to the expectations of many players and the number of players dropped drastically after the initial launch. While the developer had big plans after the game's launch, the release of this content is now in doubt.

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Developer Highguard announces layoffs less than a month after the game's release

On February 11, level designer Alex Graner revealed in a LinkedIn post that Wildlight Entertainment had let him go. In their report, they said “most of the team” had also been let go. This news from Graner was officially confirmed in a tweet from Wildlight Entertainment shortly after. The company's statement reads: “Today we've made the incredibly difficult decision to part ways with a number of our team members while retaining a core group of developers to continue to innovate and support the game.” The developer went on to say that he was “proud” of his team and the game they created. In addition, they thanked the players who played High Guardian and plan to support her further.

While this statement from Wildlight Entertainment reveals that the game will continue to be supported for now, we'll see how that plays out. The developer used the term “innovation”, which could indicate that more new content may still be on the way. However, the layoffs will have an impact on the 2026 schedule High Guardian remains unknown. It's worth noting that Graner has hinted that a lot of the content he's been working on may never see the light of day. “This really stings because there was a lot of unreleased content that I and others suggested I was really looking forward to. High Guardian,” they said when writing on LinkedIn.

For context, Wildlight Entertainment has the next year mapped out for new content. The plan was ambitious, with a total of seven episodes scheduled to be released by December. This episodic content was expected to include new bases, guards, weapons, modes and more High Guardiangameplay exciting. However, based on Graner's comments, some of them will never make it to the game after a disappointing launch.

Despite the negative reception High Guardian the game's reception at launch intrigued some players. This is undoubtedly sad news for those who were hoping for the game to gain popularity on platforms like Steam. At the time of writing, the game only has 2,755 players on the Valve platform. While the game isn't shutting down yet, we'll see if he can find a way to get the limited squad player down.