In only a matter of weeks, the raid shooter Highguard has gone from making an enormous splash to a cautionary story on par with Sony’s Harmony. In line with Ampere Evaluation, over 1.5 million gamers tried Highguard in January 2026. However most of these gamers merely did not stick round after sampling the expertise.
The Sport Enterprise’ co-founder Chris Dring shared Ampere’s knowledge on X, and famous that Highguard’s efficiency was on par with Palworld, DayZ, and Crimson Useless Redemption 2 throughout that point.
Round 1.54 million individuals performed Highguard throughout January, across the identical quantity as Palworld, DayZ and Crimson Useless Redemption 2 (Ampere knowledge)
— Christopher Dring (@Chris_Dring) February 14, 2026
Following a speedy lower in gamers, Highguard developer Wildlight was hit by large layoffs simply over two weeks after the sport was launched. Quickly after its launch, Highguard peaked with 100,000 concurrent gamers on Steam. Sadly, those numbers were short-lived, and the trigger for Highguard’s downfall stays beneath debate.
Josh Sobel, a lead tech artist who was one of many devs laid off by Wildlight, mentioned “it was all downhill from there” after Geoff Keighley gave the corporate a main trailer spot at The Sport Awards. Sobel went on to recommend that poisonous avid gamers pushed for Highguard to fail, however subsequently deleted his X account. Even Keighley has been blamed for setting expectations too excessive, though different business figures have defended The Sport Awards’ founder.
In contrast to Harmony, Highguard is not utterly lifeless. But it surely’s unclear if Wildlight will have the ability to ship every part promised in Highguard’s content material calendar for 2026. Jason McCord–the inventive director of Highguard–has confirmed that he is among the remaining builders at Wildlight. He additionally described the layoffs as “a kick to the top like nothing you may think about.”