Developer Wildlight Entertainment released its free-to-play raid shooter, Highguard, last month, on January 26, to mixed results. Now, just a few weeks after the game’s launch, most of the team has reportedly been laid off. That’s according to former Highguard level designer Alex Graner, who posted on LinkedIn today, stating, “Unfortunately, along with most of the team at Wildlight, I was laid off today.”
In Graner’s post, he says this layoff “really stings as there was a lot of unreleased content I was really looking forward to that I and others designed for Highguard.” If we take his words literally, it sounds like that content might never be released, which would be shocking but not unprecedented in this industry, which has been under constant disruption due to layoffs.
Highguard has been climbing a steep hill since its reveal as the final “world premiere” at The Game Awards 2025 back in December. Its reveal didn’t go over well with audiences, likely due to its placement as the closing spot during the awards ceremony and its difficult-to-parse style of FPS. Nonetheless, Wildlight released the game for free on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on January 26.
Game Informer Editor-in-Chief Matt Miller called it a promising contender in his Highguard review. Just last week, Game Informer covered the news of Highguard’s Episode 2 content drop, which added a ranked mode, a new hero, another map, and more.
Game Informer has reached out to Wildlight Entertainment to learn more about the layoffs Graner is referencing, how many team members were laid off, and more. This story will be updated if we learn more.
