Highguard is shutting down on March 12, 2026, with one last update planned

Wildlight Entertainment is taking Highguard offline on March 12, 2026. The studio says it couldn’t “build a sustainable player base” to keep the game running long term.

According to the social media post, Wildlight plans to ship one final update before the servers go dark. The announcement doesn’t say what’ll be in that last patch, just that it’s coming before shutdown.

Wildlight also shared a few numbers: it says more than two million players tried Highguard after launch, and thanked the community for feedback and player-made content. But in the same breath, the studio said the game didn’t retain enough players to be viable.

The shutdown news follows recent reporting about the studio’s situation. Earlier this week we reported that the game had fewer than 20 staff remained at Wildlight after layoffs last month, and suggested the studio’s funding was tied to hitting performance metrics like retention.

Highguard was revealed at The Game Awards last December and launched on January 26 with relatively little marketing, apparently aiming for a surprise-drop moment similar to Apex Legends back in 2019. Wildlight itself was co-founded by former Respawn developers, including CEO Dusty Welch, who previously worked on Apex.