Wildlight has introduced that Highguard shall be completely shutting down on March twelfth. Earlier than that, we plan to launch a ultimate replace that can add a brand new Warden, new weapons, account stage development, and a ability tree for many who wish to take part within the ultimate match.
Wildlight shared the information on X/Twitter, saying, “As we speak we share troublesome information. We made the choice to completely shut Excessive Guard on March twelfth.”
βSince launch, greater than 2 million gamers have stepped into the world of Highguard. Youβve shared your suggestions, created content material, and so a lot of you’ve gotten believed in what weβre constructing. Weβre deeply grateful for that.
“Regardless of our staff’s ardour and laborious work, we’ve not been capable of construct a sustainable participant base to assist the sport long-term. The servers will stay on-line till March twelfth. We hope you’ll be able to be a part of us as soon as once more to indicate your assist and ship one final nice match whereas we are able to.”
“The staff is happy to launch the ultimate recreation replace so that you can take pleasure in for the remainder of your gaming life. new director, new weapon, Account stage developmentand ability tree! Full patch notes have been revealed and the patch is predicted to be launched both tonight or tomorrow morning.
βFrom everybody at Wildlight, thanks for taking part in, for supporting us, and for becoming a member of us within the story of the Excessive Guard.β
Wildlight was first introduced at The Sport Awards 2025, and it was the massive finale of the present. Jeff Keathley loved taking part in this recreation a lot that he provided the coveted ultimate spot to the excessive guard Wild Proper.
Issues did not fairly work out as deliberate, however developer Josh Sobel, who labored on Highguard earlier than being fired from Wildgate, mentioned the sport, and by extension the staff, “turned a joke from the get-go, largely as a consequence of misguided assumptions about $1 million in promoting.”
βInside minutes, a choice was made: The sport was disabled on arrival, and creators now had a month of free Livid content material,β Sobel continued. “All of our movies on social media acquired thumbs down. Remark sections have been stuffed with copy-and-pasted meme phrases like ‘Harmony 2’ and ‘Titanfall 3 died for this.’ Upon launch, it acquired over 14,000 evaluate bombs from customers who had performed for lower than an hour. Many didn’t even full the required tutorial. β
Highguard launched on January 26, 2026, and though the Wildgate staff was very quiet from The Sport Awards to launch day, the sport received off to a powerful begin with practically 100,000 concurrent Steam customers. Sadly, the consumer evaluate score on Steam was additionally “largely adverse.”
Wildgate was fast to handle the sport’s points and in addition added a 5v5 recreation mode to counter the 3v3 complaints. Shortly thereafter, a lot of the studio was laid off, however the recreation continued.
There have been lots of reviews concerning the recreation, together with the way it got here to be and the way it was secretly backed by Tencent, however sadly the story got here to an finish 45 days after its on-line launch.
We loved the excessive guard play and gave it a rating of seven/10.
videogameaddicted’s Travis Northup mentioned in his evaluate, “Even when the present model is one thing of a tough draft, Excessive Guard’s partaking gunplay, breakneck tempo of updates, and killer raid mode make for thrilling attack-defense encounters which might be extremely memorable.” “Distinctive aggressive matches positively have room for enchancment, with maps that really feel a bit empty and rounds which might be a bit uneven between gradual looting lows and chaotic raiding highs.
“Plus, with simply 9 characters, a handful of maps and bases, and only one recreation mode provided in just a few completely different flavors, there’s not lots of content material but. However what we’ve right here proper now remains to be lots of enjoyable by itself, and we’re already getting a really feel for what might be fairly nice if it will possibly survive lengthy sufficient to comprehend its full potential.”
Adam Bankhurst is a author for videogameaddicted. You may comply with him on X/Twitter @Adam Bankhurst Instagram, and TikTok, And hearken to his present A narrative about Disney magic.