Highguard Shuts Down After Only 45 Days, RIP

Wildlight Entertainment has announced that it has decided to sunset Highguard only 45 days after release.

“Today we’re sharing difficult news. We have made the decision to permanently shut down Highguard on March 12,” reads an announcement from Wildlight.

“Since launch, more than 2 million players stepped into Highguard’s world. You shared feedback, created content, and many believed in what we were building. For that, we are deeply grateful.

“Despite the passion and hard work of our team, we have not been able to build a sustainable player base to support the game long term. Servers will remain online until March 12th. We hope you’ll jump in with us one more time to show your support and get those final great matches in while we still can.”

Highguard Lived Only 45 Days Before Being Shut Down

Highguard has probably been one of 2026’s most notable releases so far, but the waves it’s made across the internet haven’t necessarily been positive for Wildlight Entertainment.

It was notable for being the final presented world premiere at last year’s The Game Awards, a spot usually reserved for massive games.

Highguard, Wildlight Entertainment

Launching the following month as a free-to-play title, Highguard saw nearly 100,000 concurrent Steam players on release day.

However, it lost 90% of the playerbase in the first week, reducing the game’s average daily to only several hundred by mid-February.

It's worth noting that Highguard's player count on Steam was actually its lowest across all three platforms, with PlayStation and Xbox allegedly being higher than on PC, albeit not by a wide margin.

In any case, this prompted Wildlight to take measures to try and salvage what it saw as the game’s biggest weak points for players.

Post-launch updates addressed the disliked 3v3 format, so team sizes were increased to five-a-side. While this was better received, it didn’t result in more players joining the game.

This was followed by layoffs at Wildlight in February, with only a “core group” staying on to keep Highguard supported with new content and updates.

Ahead of the 12 March shutdown for Highguard, Wildlight has released one last update for its remaining players to enjoy, presumably the content it was originally planning to release as part of a bigger update further down the line.

The update adds “a new Warden, a new weapon, account level progression, and skill trees”, but you’ll only have until next Thursday to try it out if you’re interested in it.