Link: https://gameinformer.com/2026/03/03/highguard-is-shutting-down-for-good-next-week

Quote from whoever is left at the developer:

"Today we’re sharing difficult news. We have made the decision to permanently shut down Highguard on March 12.

Since launch, more than 2 million players stepped into Highguard’s world. You shared feedback, created content, and many believed in what we were building. For that, we are deeply grateful.

Despite the passion and hard work of our team, we have not been able to build a sustainable player base to support the game long term. Servers will remain online until March 12th. We hope you’ll jump in with us one more time to show your support and get those final great matches in while we still can.

The team is excited to release one final game update to enjoy in the remaining life of the game. We'll be adding a new Warden, a new weapon, account level progression, and skill trees! Full patch notes are coming, and we're targeting tonight or tomorrow morning for patch release.

From all of us at Wildlight, thank you for playing, for supporting us, and for being part of Highguard’s story."

Well that didn't take long. Can't say I'm surprised after trying the game out myself.

"We're going to kill you, but we're excited to cook you some dinner first."

Why even bother with the patch? It's insane.

We'll be adding a new Warden, a new weapon, account level progression, and skill trees!

Long term progression, just what a game needs when it is shutting down!

Lol, didn't they say after the layoffs that the game was still gonna keep going? That didn't last long.

Hard to do that when you decimate the staff.

Basically apex but with raids and base building seemed cool but got old fast

Give users ability to host their own like other games, RUST, L4D, etc.

But that would give players a sense of, gasp, ownership! Can't have that!

https://thegamepost.com/sony-cracks-down-concord-custom-servers-dmca-takedowns/

Shareholders gotta eat!

You know, I'm going to come to the defense of the Highguard devs here. They know the game is going to die, but they're going to go down fighting, and I respect that

When the Rohirrim thought Aragorn had abandoned them because the battle for Gondor was a sure defeat, did they lay down their weapons and let the orcs execute them? No, they ran headlong into an army ten times their numbers

I played it, but it only got worse over time.

Why oh why did they release when they did? Just a few more months and would have had such a better response.

They actually wanted to release SOONER. They wanted to do the whole shadow drop at the game awards and go "AVAILABLE NOW!" But it wasn't ready yet. 😥

Then they went dead silent until the launch a few weeks later.

Good point, guess it was never to be then as they obviously lacked a proper plan which would have reared its head regardless.