Highguard, a free-to-play squad shooter, is set to be permanently shut down on March 12th, just under two months after its debut on January 26th. Developer Wildlight Entertainment, despite reaching 2 million players, cites a lack of a sustainable player base as the reason for the closure. This abrupt end comes as a surprise, given the game's splashy reveal at The Game Awards in December and the involvement of industry veterans from series like Apex Legends and Call of Duty. The studio's recent layoffs and the game's website going down had already raised concerns about its future.
This isn't the first time a live-service game has met such a fate. Sony's sci-fi shooter Concord was shut down within weeks of its release, despite an eight-year development cycle. Similarly, 2XKO, a new fighting game from League of Legends developer Riot, faced layoffs shortly after its launch. These closures highlight the challenges of maintaining a player base for live-service games, which often require sky-high player counts and steady revenue streams to be successful.
Publishers and developers continue to chase these success metrics, but the space remains incredibly difficult to break into. Recent success stories like Arc Raiders are rare, and even single-player-focused studios have struggled to transition to live-service releases. Despite the cancellations and studio closures, the live-service chase shows no signs of slowing down, with Sony pushing back its ambitions but still committed to upcoming games like Marathon and a co-op Horizon spinoff.
