Highguard developer Wildlight Entertainment has lost the majority of its developers following a disappointing launch for the underwhelming free-to-play FPS game.
Revealed as the final showcase of Geoff Keighley’s annual The Game Awards celebrations, Highguard did launch to impressive numbers. However, after just a few days, the game’s huge launch player base had already left the title behind.
As player numbers dwindle just weeks after launch, former senior level designer Alex Graner confirmed that “most of the team” at Wildlight Entertainment has been laid off. While a “core group” of developers will continue to support the title, the vast majority that created the game have been booted.
“Unfortunately, along with most of the team at Wildlight, I was laid off today,” Graner said. “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.”
The developer’s comments were followed up by an official statement from Wildlight Entertainment. In a social media post, the studio said: “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.”
The sizeable layoffs come following a statement from Wildlight Entertainment lead designer Mohammad Alavi claiming that the studio didn’t need massive player numbers to continue. Speaking to PC Gamer, they said: “Honestly, we don’t need [player counts] to be super huge in order to be successful.”
In the same article, CEO Dusty Welch argued that the FPS genre isn’t as crowded as many believe, saying that the studio had “a great opportunity to find our audience with Highguard”. Unfortunately, while an audience was found, it wasn’t gripped well enough to stay with the game.
At least for now, Highguard is still playable on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series machines. The game still has a sizeable roadmap of content seemingly still on the way with new maps, wardens, and more planned for release.
