Despite now having been officially released a month ago, Highguard’s launch and subsequent failure continues to be one of the gaming industry’s biggest stories. From the source of its funding, which has now been revealed to be Tencent, to the live-service title’s floundering player counts, there’s interest on almost every side.
Now, in a new podcast appearance, a former developer at Wildlight Entertainment, Alex Graner, a senior level designer, has opened up about some of the elements of the title that he believes led to its near instantaneous downfall.
Highguard Failed Because It Tried To Deliver An Experience That Already Exists
Wildlight Entertainment has announced it has laid off the majority of developers behind Highguard.
Specifically, Graner points to the game’s 3v3 focus as being one of the biggest reasons why things ultimately didn’t work out.
Was Highguard Too Competitive For Its Own Good?
As first spotted and transcribed by PCGamesN, Graner asserted that Highguard ultimately “leaned too far into the competitive scene.” A decision that coincided with its 3v3 focus.
“3v3 duos is always the sweatiest version of anything like battle royale, objective modes, wingman, you know it, you name it,” Graner said. “It requires such a high intensity of communication with your team, and team play, that it doesn’t leave much room for casualness. I think that was the biggest thing that turned a lot of players off Highguard.”
It also didn’t help that the game was full of “different rules and stages,” Graner added. It created an experience that was too much to grasp early.
“On top of all that, because it was 3v3, that kind of game just requires high-skill movement and shooting, which is already a pretty high [bar to] entry as well,” Graner explained. “So, if you just have a few bad games or your teammates aren’t sticking together, you’re just going to get rolled, and it’s very hard to 1v2 in our game. It’s all designed to be a team-based shooter. I think that was the biggest thing. People just kind of turned it off because they didn’t have the team.”
Those critiques were something that early adopters were quick to offer, and for its part, Wildlight did make a 5v5 mode that started as a “limited time” event before becoming a permanent addition to the game.
Most recently, Widlight added an entirely different mode, Raid Rush, that removed the looting phase entirely, helping streamline a game that desperately needed some reining in. It is also 5v5.
Unfortunately, it might be a case of too little, too late, as the game has just under 400 players at the time of writing and just under 600 players in the last 24 hours on Steam, per SteamDB. It’s unclear whether having those additions at launch would’ve improved the game’s odds, but it certainly wouldn’t have hurt either.
- Released
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January 26, 2026
- Developer(s)
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Wildlight Entertainment
- Publisher(s)
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Wildlight Entertainment
- Multiplayer
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Online Multiplayer
- Cross-Platform Play
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Full
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