Update: It’s over
Highguard continues to flounder following the game’s disastrous launch, and nothing we’re hearing from both the project and the studio at Wildlight Entertainment bodes well. In January, Highguard dropped after almost two months of radio silence from the developer and promptly fell flat on its face, marking one of the biggest failures in gaming history.
Earlier today, the game’s player count (verifiable only on Steam) dropped dangerously close to double-digit territory, falling to just 105 active users on Valve’s PC platform.
Highguard Has Fallen
There’s no saving Highguard now, but that has been apparent for a while.
The game launched at the end of January to an utterly miserable reception, being eagerly cast out by critics worldwide. Within weeks, the player count had dwindled, Wildlight Entertainment had held layoffs, and the rumors started leaking from within the project, none of them saying anything positive about the ‘new breed of shooter’ title.
Even the game’s former developers had their concerns about the game long before it hit the market.
Looking at Highguard’s numbers, we can paint a fairly awful picture. This morning, it dropped to just 105 players on Steam, the only platform on which player numbers can be accurately verified. That’s a mighty -99.8% drop from the all-time peak of 97,249, secured when the game came out.
It’s not just players, though. Those interested in watching Highguard content gave up on the game long ago, and at the time of writing, just 46 people in the entire world were tuned into a Highguard stream on Twitch. On January 26, 382,000 viewers were watching, making up their mind as to whether they wanted to give the game the time of day or not.
It could have been worse, too. Highguard was supposed to be shadowdropped, but Geoff Keighley was reportedly adamant to have it occupy the prestigious final reveal spot at The Game Awards at the tail end of 2025.
It’s never nice to see a game die, especially not one that was revealed with such gusto and aura. It became the talk of the town for a while, but even a creator-backed investment couldn’t do anything to muster up traction at launch. The path forward for Highguard is effectively non-existent at this point, and that’s a shame.
Did you play Highguard? Let us know what you thought about it on the Insider Gaming Discord server.
For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out the news that the ‘next Palworld’ is soaring on Kickstarter
Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
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