Why were Highguard developers laid off?
Rapid fallout after a rocky free‑to‑play launch
Wildlight Entertainment confirmed widespread cuts to its team only weeks after Highguard launched. Multiple former staffers described the layoffs as extensive — with one saying "most of the team" was let go — and the studio later acknowledged it had "parted ways" with an unspecified number of employees while retaining a smaller core to continue support.
The downsizing tracked a very public, fast‑moving cycle of expectation and backlash. Highguard shipped shortly after a high-profile reveal at The Game Awards and an aggressive marketing window. The reveal trailer and subsequent footage provoked a wave of negative reaction online, and internal and external commentators point to that hostile initial reception as a major contributor to the game's poor early momentum.
Other practical pressures were present as well:
- The title follows a free‑to‑play, live‑service business model that relies on strong early retention and monetisation; early indicators suggested the game wasn’t meeting those targets.
- Industry observers note that modern live services can struggle to recover from a bad launch because first impressions drive concurrent player counts, revenue, and investor confidence.
- Several former employees described a toxic feedback loop of viral criticism that made community growth harder.
Wildlight has insisted the project itself is not being cancelled and said a smaller team will keep working on Highguard. Former staffers and analysts disagree on how salvageable the project is; some have framed the cuts as a sign the free‑to‑play formula didn’t deliver the expected economics, others as a consequence of the unusually intense early trolling and negative narrative that followed the trailer.
What remains unclear is the exact scale of the layoffs and the long‑term plan for the surviving team. Wildlight’s confirmation and multiple accounts from ex‑employees show the studio is in survival mode for now: the game lives on, but the people making it have been dramatically reduced.