Highguard Developer Wildlight Drops Below 20 Staff After Funding Pull

Wildlight Entertainment is operating with fewer than 20 developers after mass layoffs earlier in February, following a reported withdrawal of financing from Tencent that staff say came about two weeks after Highguard’s January 26, 2026 launch. Bloomberg reporting, amplified by follow-ups from industry outlets, names the staffing drop and traces the funding cutoff to early February meetings with studio leadership.

The studio that formed in 2021 and included veterans from Apex Legends, Titanfall, and Call of Duty had swelled to roughly 100 people before the layoffs. PC Gamer reports employees were told on February 11 that Tencent, which had secretly financed the project, had ended funding; Bloomberg’s reporting is described as based on interviews with 10 former Wildlight employees. Sources say the backer’s support was contingent on retention and other performance metrics that Highguard failed to hit.

Highguard launched on January 26, 2026 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and Series S. The launch peaked at nearly 100,000 concurrent players, but PC Gamer noted that within a couple of weeks most had drifted away, with fewer than 400 concurrent players reported shortly after. IGN describes reviews as poor and says the game “made very little money from microtransactions,” linking weak retention to the studio’s sudden cash crisis.

As a product, Highguard was presented as a free-to-play PvP raid shooter with players cast as Wardens - arcane gunslingers vying for control of a mythical contested area. PlayStation Universe’s game listing highlights mounted combat, destructible environments, and fantasy-themed powers. The studio also pushed a gameplay update, rolling out a new 5v5 “Raid Rush” mode that PC Gamer reports drew a mixed response because it temporarily disabled the standard 3v3 raids that players had expected.

Wildlight’s development history included a pivot from an earlier survival-focused shooter that the studio scrapped in favor of a hero-shooter approach. IGN reports testers found the game “more fun on microphone with voice chat, and the experience was too complicated and less fun without them.” Lead designer Mohammad Alavi told reporters ahead of launch, “What we're really hoping for is a core group of fans that love us. That will allow us to grow.”

After the funding cutoff and layoffs, remaining developers have continued work on patches and mode updates while maintaining public reassurances that fixes are coming after a website error briefly led players to fear a full shutdown. With fewer than 20 people left to steward a live-service shooter that launched to a brief peak and then saw concurrent counts collapse, Wildlight faces an uphill task restoring player retention and generating the microtransaction revenue that reportedly underpinned its funding arrangement.