UPDATE 03/03/2026 - Highguard developer Wildlight Entertainment has announced that the game will be shut down as of March 12, 45 days after it initially launched. Read the full story here.
Original Story:
The beginning of a new calendar year in the video game industry has, unfortunately, once again been marked by mass layoffs and studio shutdowns. And while last year was kicked off by a brand new free-to-play game becoming a smash success, this year is marked by the exact opposite. Highguard, the latest free-to-play game on the market from former Apex Legends developers at Wildlight Entertainment, is the first major misfire of 2026.
After it was debuted at The Game Awards 2025, a lot was said online about a game that no one had played, while Wildlight kept its head down, preparing for its impending launch on January 26, 2026. Then it arrived, and despite hitting 97K concurrent players on Steam, it couldn't keep those numbers. Players started ripping the game apart in user reviews, and just two weeks after launch, Wildlight laid off "most" of the development team.
One of those laid-off developers has given their version of events as to how Highguard's failure transpired, but now, a new report from Bloomberg's Jason Schreier has provided a bit more insight into what happened with the studio after speaking to several of the former Wildlight Entertainment developers.
The short version of the answer, according to the developers Schreier spoke to, is that Highguard failed because of the "hubris" of its leadership team, who believed they could recreate the kind of instant success that Apex Legends had when it was shadow-dropped in 2019. That's also part of the long answer, but the long answer also includes a fairly big hole that was missed during the game's testing.
In the report, it's pointed out that Wildlight never properly addressed the fact that when they tested the game with external players and turned their microphones off, it created a drastically different experience compared to when players could vocally communicate with each other. There are a lot of systems to learn in Highguard, and without being able to talk it out with other players, the testing results were more negative than positive. It also didn't help that having members of the Wildlight team on hand to aid players who were confused about what to do didn't provide accurate playtesting conditions for their results.
Having a hole or two in its testing process ultimately wasn't the sole reason for Highguard's downfall, but it does feel like a significant component that explains a bit about why it launched as such a mish-mash of genres.
As for those remaining at Wildlight, the report confirms that there are "less than 20 people" left at the studio, trying to salvage the shooter. It also adds that Tencent, which was revealed to be the main source of the studio's funds, had cut its funding once Highguard failed to reach certain launch expectations. Losing Tencent's funding is why the studio had mass layoffs just two weeks after launch.
If it's able to pull off a comeback, it wouldn't be the first game to beat such high odds, and it's always better to see a studio beat the odds instead of succumbing to them. But laying all your hopes in slim chances like that is its own kind of hubris.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
