Wildlight Entertainment, the studio behind newly-released multiplayer shooter Highguard, has been impacted by significant layoffs, with one former employee claiming ‘most of the team’ has been laid off.
The news arrives just weeks after Highguard launched to mostly negative feedback, following a brief but highly-public hype cycle that included a major appearance at The Game Awards 2025.
Wildlight team laid off – quick links
Wildlight Entertainment’s layoffs
Word of the layoffs was first shared by Wildlight Entertainment level designer Alex Graner, via LinkedIn.
In a post to his personal account (shared by Kotaku), Graner said: ‘Unfortunately, along with most of the team at Wildlight, I was laid off today. This one really stings as there was a lot of unreleased content I was really looking forward to that I and others designed for Highguard.’
It appears Graner isn’t alone, as their wording suggests a company-wide layoff, with future plans for Highguard now up in the air. It appears new content for the game may be cancelled, and at this stage, it’s unclear what comes next.
Update 1:04pm – In a statement to Kotaku, Wildlight Interactive confirmed it had made the decision to lay off some staff, while remaining team members will keep working on Highguard into the future.
‘Today we made an incredibly difficult decision to part ways with a number of our team members while keeping a core group of developers to continue innovating on and supporting the game,’ a studio spokesperson said.
‘We’re proud of the team, talent, and the product we’ve created together. We’re also grateful for players who gave the game a shot, and those who continue to be a part of our community.’
How players responded to Highguard
What’s most notable about this sudden announcement is that Highguard was only released on 26 January, just a few weeks prior. It hadn’t had enough time to gather a passionate audience, or to issue major updates that might otherwise have shifted public sentiment.
It appears, this early on, hard decisions have already been made.
As ScreenHub reported in January, Highguard launched to a peak concurrent count of 97,000 players, a respectable figure for a title from a new studio, and not tied to any existing IP. But early responses were wildly negative, with some players review-bombing over disappointment with The Game Awards, and others being fairly critical of gameplay and technical issues.
‘The map is the size of Latvia but you only have three players, so most of your time is spent running around the map looking for something to kill,’ one player noted.
Other players noted a lack of coherence in the game’s design, overall bland characters, audio quirks and a lack of interesting lore. All of these elements combined to create a relatively negative impression of Highguard, which may have coloured player perceptions.
As of writing, Highguard has just 2,300 players online (per SteamDB), indicating there may have been a significant drop-off of players from its initial launch, likely speeding the layoffs.
The live service market remains incredibly difficult to crack
It’s important to note Highguard released into the incredibly competitive live service market, at a time when the attention economy is increasingly difficult to crack. Players who enjoy multiplayer online games with friends are already playing a variety of games, and are entrenched in their varied ecosystems.
New games attempting to gather their own audiences need to offer something exciting and different, with compelling reasons for players to jump in and keep returning for round after round.
It appears Highguard hasn’t quite been able to make an immediate impact, which was likely required to maintain service, and to keep a positive outlook at Wildlight Entertainment.
