Highguard developer Wildlight Entertainment has confirmed studio layoffs two weeks after the game’s release. Newly formed independent studio Wildlight did not specify the number of employees affected by the layoffs, but a former employee at the company said that “most of the team” was laid off. The studio said it will continue to support Highguard despite the dwindling player base.
News of the layoffs comes after Wildlight’s former senior level designer Alex Graner said he was fired along with “most of the team” at the studio.
“Unfortunately, today I was laid off along with the majority of the Wildlight team,” Graner posted on LinkedIn on Wednesday. “It really stings because there’s a lot of unreleased content and I’m really looking forward to what I and others are designing for Highguard.”
Other Wildlight employees later posted that they had been fired. The studio confirmed the layoffs in an announcement on X but did not specify the number of employees affected by the layoffs.
“Today we made the extremely difficult decision to part ways with some team members while retaining the core development team to continue innovating and supporting the game,” the studio said.
“We’re proud of the team, talent, and product we’ve created together. We’re also grateful to those who gave the game a try, and to those who continue to be part of our community.”
Today, we made the extremely difficult decision to part ways with some team members while retaining the core development team to continue innovating and supporting the game.
We are proud of the team, talent and products we create together. We are also grateful…
— Wildlight Entertainment (@WildlightEnt) February 12, 2026
High guard launches
Highguard was the final reveal at The Game Awards 2025 and has since been criticized for its similarities to hero shooters like Overwatch and Marvel Rivals. The PvP raid shooter launches as a free-to-play game on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series S/X on January 26th. Although the game’s concurrent player count on Steam peaked at nearly 100,000 players, first-day player numbers were encouraging, but the average player base quickly fell below 5,000 players.
Wildlight has been quick to update the game since launch, adding a 5v5 mode, new maps, and more in Episode 2 on February 6. The studio unveiled a roadmap for post-launch updates to the game, promising seven episodes of new content throughout 2026. It’s unclear whether Wildlight will follow up on its plans to support games for the rest of the year.
