Wildlight Lays Off Most Staff 17 Days After Highguard Launch

Wildlight Entertainment, the California-based studio behind the free-to-play multiplayer shooter Highguard, has laid off most of its staff just 17 days after the game's launch on January 26, 2026. The move, first reported by affected developers on LinkedIn, raises serious questions about the future of the live-service title, which debuted to initial excitement but quickly saw player engagement plummet.

Level designer Alex Graner, a veteran of projects including Apex Legends and Battlefield, shared the news in a LinkedIn post on February 12. "Unfortunately, along with most of the team at Wildlight, I was laid off today," Graner wrote. "This one really stings as there was a lot of unreleased content I was really looking forward to that I and others designed for Highguard." Other team members, including senior software engineers, environment artists, audio director Brad Snyder, and producer Amélia Almeida, echoed the announcement on the platform, describing the group as one of the strongest they had worked with. Lead tech artist Josh Sobel noted, "It was the best team I've ever worked with. I've never put so much of myself into a project before."