A new report from Game File suggests that Highguard developer Wildlight Entertainment was financially backed by Chinese gaming giant Tencent during the development of the hero shooter.
Before this week’s mass layoffs, the majority of the team at Wildlight had come from Respawn Entertainment, the Electronic Arts-owned studio behind Titanfall and Apex Legends. However, the question of where the studio sourced funding for a high-budget triple-A hero shooter was an open mystery following the game’s reveal.
Highguard Was Reportedly Funded By Tencent
According to a Game File source, Wildlight was bankrolled by TiMi Studio Group, a subsidiary of Tencent that has published titles like Pokémon Unite and Delta Force.
Game File’s source did not specify why the arrangement was not disclosed, the scale of the funding, or how much involvement TiMi Group had in the development of Highguard.
Tencent is a massive investor in the triple-A gaming scene; the company owns a partial stake in Epic Games and Ubisoft, and a majority stake in League of Legends developer Riot Games.
As mentioned above, Wildlight Entertainment announced a round of layoffs earlier this week, with former staff revealing that the majority of the development team had been let go.
“Today, we made an incredibly difficult decision to part ways with a number of our team members while keeping a core group of developers to continue innovating and supporting the game,” a Wildlight spokesperson told Kotaku. “We’re proud of the team, talent, and the product we’ve created together. We’re also grateful for players who gave the game a shot, and those who continue to be part of our community.”
Highguard’s Website Went Down Today, And Fans Are Fearing The Worst
The live-service cycle gets quicker every time.
It’s unknown if the layoffs have something to do with the nature of the alleged relationship between Tencent and Wildlight. The situation appears to be worsening for Highguard, as the number of daily concurrent players has dropped from over 90,000 at launch to just 1,000 during the past few days.
Wildlight has not announced that the game will be shutting down, but the game’s website went offline earlier today without any explanation from the studio.
The last post made by the official Highguard account was on February 12, and concerned an optimisation patch for the game. This post was made shortly after the layoffs at Wildlight became public.
Highguard
- 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
-
Full
- Number of Players
-
Single-player
