The majority of the Wildlight Entertainment team has been laid off today following a very lackluster launch for Highguard.
“Unfortunately, along with most of the team at Wildlight, I was laid off today,” said Level Designer Alex Graner on LinkedIn earlier on February 10th. “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.
“However, I’m excited for my next adventure.”
The downfall of Highguard started before it even launched
Highguard was meant to be shadow-launched. The team behind the “raid shooter,” which consisted of many Apex Legends veterans, wanted to let the game “speak for itself.”
Unfortunately, Geoff Keighley asked to show the trailer at the end of the mainstream slop-fest that is The Game Awards 2025. Giving a game that coveted slot set up pretty high expectations, and many were surprised to see a live-service shooter end the show rather than a dramatic AAA open world title.
After the sudden trailer drop, Wildlight Entertainment went silent. The team attempted to go back to its original plan, not providing any information, gameplay, or cinematics ahead of launch.
Design and Creative Director Jason McCord told The Escapist ahead of launch: “We appreciated the shot. We were excited. We felt we’d drop this one thing, but be quiet and let the game speak for itself.”
But it didn’t work that way.
The gaming community was not accustomed to the silent treatment, and it sent them into a frenzy. There were theories that the game wouldn’t make it. There were speculations and negative reactions to the gameplay, even though nobody really saw it yet.
Meanwhile, Keighley couldn’t stop tweeting about the game. He joked that everyone would “apologize” to him when the game came out and they saw it was good. He promised it wasn’t dying. He wouldn’t shut up. So much for a shadow drop. Even worse, Keighley is a corporate shill who made gamers even more skeptical about the upcoming release. Nobody wanted a game that was being continuously marketed by Keighley.
Then, the weekend before Highguard’s launch, Wildlight Entertainment let journalists and influencers tell their followers they had attended a special launch event. Content creators spammed X (formerly Twitter) with overly dramatic hype tweets that sounded paid for, claiming it was the best game they had ever played. Shunned pedo DrDisrespect even pretended that he’d gone to the event.
Gamers felt that Wildlight had paid for publicity. The game was no longer speaking for itself. It was a mess.
Highguard could not be saved (and gamers wouldn’t let it be saved)
Highguard launched, and the game was pretty cool. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a solid experience. The concept of a raid shooter was fun for me and others, and the level design, mounts, and attention to detail were appreciated, especially given that we were usually getting soulless slop from teams that didn’t really care about the product.
At least Wildlight cared about the game and its community.
Gamers had already made up their minds, bashing Highguard on Steam despite not playing for more than 10 minutes. As the backlash continued, Highguard made rapid-fire changes to please the community, including implementing a much-requested 5v5 mode. That sorta helped.
Highguard devs continued to respond to feedback and change the game for the community.
However, the quick changes and upcoming content road map weren’t enough to build up a large enough player base after the cursed launch. It remained around 6,000 players over the past few weeks, which apparently wasn’t the hype developers hoped for.
Three weeks after launch, Wildlight Entertainment has put up the white flag. The gaming community has won – the ones that were so hungry to see a game flop. The negative reviews, the constant hate on X, the refusal to play the game… It worked.
It’s not a game for everyone. But it didn’t deserve the massive backlash. Let this be a lesson: Avoid Keighley and avoid The Game Awards.
Last Updated On: Feb 12, 2026 1:45 am CET