Less than a month after its launch, Highguard, the developer, unexpectedly cut staff.

Wildlight Entertainment, the developer of Highguard, has just laid off a number of employees, despite having previously outlined ambitious plans for this PvP game project.

Game developer Highguard unexpectedly cuts staff.

Unveiled at  The Game Awards 2025,  Highguard  became the subject of controversy as simply another live-service game. Nevertheless, with its free-to-play model, the game still garnered some attention, attracting nearly 100,000 concurrent players on Steam on its launch day, January 26th.

However, the 3v3 mechanism on a massive map system caused the game to lose its appeal and significantly reduced its appeal. Although the development team had ambitious post-launch plans, whether that content will still be released is currently in doubt.

Recently, Alex Graner, a level designer for  Highguard,  shared on LinkedIn that he had been laid off by Wildlight Entertainment , and that "the majority of the team" had also been fired. This information was later confirmed by Wildlight itself on Twitter with an official announcement:

"Today, we made an incredibly difficult decision to part ways with several members of our team, while retaining a core development group to continue innovating and supporting the game."

The developers also stated that they are 'proud' of the team and the product they have created, and thanked the gamers who have played Highguard and intend to continue supporting the game in the future.

Highguard's uncertain future

While this statement suggests continued support in the future, the scale and form of that support remain unclear. Wildlight Entertainment uses the word 'innovation,' which could imply that new content is still under consideration. However, the impact of these layoffs on Highguard 's 2026 development roadmap remains a big question mark. Notably, Graner stated that much of the content he was involved in developing might never be released.

"This is really heartbreaking, because there's so much unreleased content that I and others designed for Highguard, and I was really looking forward to seeing it appear in the game," Graner wrote on LinkedIn.

To clarify, Wildlight Entertainment had previously outlined a detailed plan for the entire following year with new content. This schedule was quite ambitious, with a total of seven episodes scheduled for release before December. Each episode was expected to add new bases, wardens, weapons, game modes, and other elements to keep Highguard 's gameplay engaging. However, based on Graner's comments, some of that may never be included in the game after the disappointing launch.

Despite receiving negative reviews upon its release, it still managed to reach a certain segment of players. Undoubtedly, this is sad news for those who had hoped the game would gradually regain momentum and become more popular on platforms like Steam. Currently, Highguard only has 2,755 players on Valve 's platform . While the game hasn't been shut down, whether it can find a way to attract players back with its dwindling roster remains uncertain.