Highguard studio Wildlight Leisure reportedly has lower than 20 individuals remaining to work on the sport following a spherical of devastating layoffs simply weeks after the sport’s launch.
This comes from a brand new Bloomberg report, which tells the story of Wildlight’s rise and fall since its founders first assembled the crew again in 2021. Made up of Respawn veterans, the group hoped to recreate the successes of Apex Legends and Titanfall, initially with a survival-focused shooter.
When that design did not fairly work in addition to they’d hoped, they scrapped it and pivoted to Highguard, leaving remnants of the unique survival recreation within the ultimate draft of what was now a hero shooter. As the sport progressed, testers had constructive suggestions that had the builders hopeful, although notably in addition they mentioned it was extra enjoyable on microphone with voice chat, and the expertise was too sophisticated and fewer enjoyable with out them.
Sources chatting with Bloomberg say the studio largely had a constructive tradition and the crew felt good about what they have been making up till the sport’s announcement at The Recreation Awards final December, which apparently took place at Geoff Keighley’s urging after he loved what he performed of it. The crew initially meant to announce and launch Highguard concurrently, however with The Recreation Awards announcement that left a month-and-a-half-long silence between announcement and launch throughout which the web had a subject day.
The sport launched to a celebration-worthy variety of Steam concurrents, however sadly was unable to retain gamers for very lengthy at all, that means it made little or no cash from microtransactions. Critiques have been additionally poor. Although the builders at Wildlight believed they’d monetary runway to enhance, monetary backer Tencent instantly pulled its funding, and many of the 100-person crew was laid off because of this. Fewer than 20 people stay to try to save Highguard. These builders have lately reassured {that a} new patch is on the best way, after a web site concern led gamers to consider the entire recreation was being taken down.
The total story is at Bloomberg.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Obtained a narrative tip? Ship it to rvalentine@ign.com.