Highguard discovered itself within the highlight of the net online game discourse again in December throughout The Recreation Awards presentwhen host Geoff Keighley made a particular introduction for the sport’s trailer, which got here very late within the present, a time reserved for a few of the evening’s greatest reveals. The subsequent day, there have been questions as to what this free-to-play multiplayer shooter from a brand new studio was. Now, lower than two months after its launch, Highguard is being shut down.
Developer Wildlight Leisure posted on X about Highguard’s shutdown on Tuesday. The developer says it was unable to realize the participant base it wanted to get the sport going, and it’ll shut down servers on March 12.
“Regardless of the fervour and laborious work of our crew, we now have not been in a position to construct a sustainable participant base to assist the sport long run,” the studio stated. “Servers will stay on-line till March twelfth. We hope you will bounce in with us another time to indicate your assist and get these closing nice matches in whereas we nonetheless can.”
In his overview of HighguardCNET’s David Lumb described the sport as a first-person shooter that had the lane-skirmish combating present in multiplayer on-line battle area video games and base raiding mechanics present in titles like Rainbow Six: Siege. The builders described this new mash-up as a “raid shooter.” Wildlight has since acknowledged that the preliminary displaying of the sport at The Recreation Awards did not correctly characterize the sport.
When the sport was launched on Jan. 26, Highguard began off robust. Practically 100,000 individuals had been taking part in the sport on PC at launch, in keeping with SteamDB. That quantity dropped considerably within the days that adopted, and within the final week of February, it fell to barely greater than 400 a day. Issues had been wanting bleak for Wildlight for many of February because the participant depend dwindled. On Feb. 11, members of the developer crew posted on LinkedIn about layoffs, and the sport’s web site went down on Feb. 17.
Highguard mixed a number of mechanics, together with summoning mounts and firing weapons from horseback.
“Unfavorable press is a tough stink to scrub off,” Lumb stated at the moment. “When avid gamers resolve to hate a recreation, they’re going to sink it, particularly if it would not have years of runway like No Man’s Sky.”
On the r/video games subreddit, in a thread concerning the announcement, posters shared their issues with the sport. Some pointed to dated visuals, whereas others stated the gameplay was complicated and sorely wanted refinement.
Former Wildlight builders instructed Bloomberg on Feb. 26 that they felt it was the “hubris” of the studio management that led to the sport’s demise. The studio was made up of former members of the crew that developed Titanfall, Titanfall 2 and Apex Legends, they usually weren’t conscious of how the gaming panorama had modified since these video games had been launched.
Wildlight says it intends to proceed updating the sport. A closing replace might be made accessible someday on Wednesday or Thursday, and it’ll embody a brand new character, a brand new weapon, account stage development and ability timber.
