Highguard Developer Wildlight Entertainment Lays Off Majority of Staff Weeks After Launch

Highguard | Image credit: Wildgate

Wildlight Entertainment has laid off most of its development team just weeks after launching Highguard, the free-to-play multiplayer shooter that debuted on January 26, 2026.

The studio confirmed it will keep a small "core group of developers" to continue supporting the game, though the exact number of affected employees remains unspecified.

Level designer Alex Graner was among the first to break the news on LinkedIn, sharing that he was let go alongside most of his colleagues. "Unfortunately, along with most of the team at Wildlight, I was laid off today," Graner wrote. "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."

Graner's resume includes impressive work on titles like Battlefield 6 and Apex Legends during his time at Respawn.

Lead Tech Artist Josh Sobel also expressed his devastation in an emotional LinkedIn post, stating, "It was the best team I've ever worked with, and I've never put so much of myself into a project before. I wouldn't trade the past 2.5+ years for anything."

The layoffs came just 17 days after Highguard went live, catching many by surprise, given that the studio had recently launched the game's first Episode with a new Warden character, location, and Ranked mode.

Wildlight Entertainment addressed the situation in a statement shared with Eurogamer, explaining, "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 studio emphasized its "pride in the team" and thanked players who supported Highguard, though the future of the game now appears uncertain.

Highguard's journey has been rocky from the start. The game was unveiled as the final announcement during The Game Awards show in December 2025, where host Geoff Keighley praised the title extensively.

However, the reception was immediately contentious, with players drawing unfavorable comparisons to Sony's Concord, one of the biggest failures in recent gaming history. The backlash was swift, with gamers expressing their displeasure across YouTube comments and social media platforms.

Following the announcement, Wildlight went radio silent for weeks until the game's launch. When Highguard finally released, it debuted with mostly negative reviews on Steam. The game managed to get a peak of 97,249 concurrent players on Steam, according to SteamDB. Mat Piscatella from Circana noted that Highguard even broke into the top 10 weekly active users on US Steam and ranked in the top 20 on both PlayStation and Xbox during its launch week.

The honeymoon period was short-lived. Player complaints centered on bugs, poorly balanced gameplay, and a lack of urgency in the combat system. The initial 3v3 competitive format proved particularly unpopular, with many feeling the matches lacked scale and excitement. Within days, the player count plummeted to just over 11,000.

In response, Wildlight quickly implemented a 5v5 mode that was initially planned as a limited-time event, eventually making it permanent after positive feedback from the community.

Despite these efforts and the praise that followed, the damage was done. The player base continued its downward spiral, dropping to approximately 3,100 concurrent players as of now, placing it outside Steam's top 200 most active games.

The timing of these layoffs is particularly brutal, considering Wildlight had unveiled an ambitious year-one roadmap on launch day. The plan included seven Episodes packed with new items, modes, characters, maps, weapons, and mounts throughout 2026. Now, with most of the team gone, the feasibility of delivering on these promises seems questionable at best.

Social and community lead Alex Frostwolf, who was also among those laid off, shared a poignant message describing Highguard as "the story of us: a group of talented, like-minded folks on an adventure into the unknown."

Tech artist Josh Sobel added, "I don't think gamers really understand just how special this group of talented devs was."

Other developers in the industry have shown support, with Splitgate studio 1047 Games reminding everyone that "No game is perfect on day one."

This situation adds to the growing trend of layoffs plaguing the gaming industry. Recent weeks have seen Ubisoft undergo major restructuring that resulted in 6 project cancellations, including the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time remake, while Riot Games cut half the development team working on its fighting game 2XKO.