Highguard, the raid hero shooter infamously announced at the Game Awards, has announced it will shut down on March 12, 2026. The unfortunate news isn’t entirely surprising following the recent news that developer Wildlight laid off the vast majority of its employees.
The statement announcing the game’s shutdown was posted to Highguard’s social media accounts earlier today, alongside the news of one final update that will add a new Warden, new weapon, account level progression, and skill trees.
Highguard shuts down
Just over one month after its launch at the end of Jan. 2026, Highguard will permanently shut down. The post from the developers reads:
While it’s not incredibly shocking that Highguard is sunsetting, just how fast the turnaround was from launch is slightly surprising. The game had promised at least a year of planned content for players to look forward to (which we can now assume was cancelled) but is ending just under two months since its release.
It’s clear that Highguard didn’t resonate with audiences like the developers had hoped, as the game peaked with close to 100,000 players at launch, according to SteamDB. That number rapidly dwindled down to less than 10,000 by the beginning of Feb., with recent days unable to clear 1,000 players.
What happened to Highguard?
The biggest question surrounding Highguard is what exactly happened? The announcement of the game, in the most coveted slot at the very end of the Game Awards alongside some extensive hype from show host Geoff Keighley, has always been surrounded by a confused fog. It seems the developers didn’t petition to be placed in such a high profile place in the award show and weren’t ready for so much attention, as their initial plan was to shadow drop the title and slowly build a fanbase.
Instead, the game was thrust in the spotlight after Keighley playtested the game and wanted to feature it in the show. After that, Highguard was set upon by people comparing it to other infamous failures like Concord before it even had a chance to debut. It’s sad to think that a poor announcement may have tanked faith in the game, and the flawed gameplay at launch didn’t help convince the hundreds of thousands of players who peeked in to see what the fuss was about.
Unfortunately, it seemed clear to everyone that Highguard would be a short-lived title after Wildlight Entertainment announced mass layoffs at the beginning of February following the tepid response by players.
Perhaps if Highguard had been able to go through with their original shadow drop and bolster the gameplay after a few months of tweaking (like increasing team sizes and decreasing resource grinding time), it would’ve enjoyed the slow and steady growth of a fanbase, similar to what Apex Legends did in 2019. With the highly interesting lore videos the game had started to release, this seems like it was the original plan given Apex’s similar early strategy.
The shutdown of any game is a disappointment, especially one like Highguard that really seemed like it need just a while longer to marinate. The art style, characters, and gameplay all held promise, but hopefully all the developers will be able to move on to other exciting projects.
