All is not well in the realm of Highguard. After a very rocky launch shortly followed by a massive round of layoffs at development studio Wildlight Entertainment, Highguard‘s official website, playhighguard.com, has gone down. Rather than redirecting to a 404 page, the game’s website — which previously hosted character bios, lore, and info about future updates — now displays the Highguard logo along with the text, “Site Unavailable. This site is currently unavailable. Please contact support@codethirtytwo.com for assistance.” The site appears to have gone down between Feb. 16 and 17.
Wildlight Entertainment’s office website is still up, but underwent maintenance around the same time the Highguard site went down. The site’s “About” section (including “meet the team” and “who we are” pages) has been completely removed, as has its “Join Us” section, which previously listed job openings. The only remaining parts of the site are the homepage, the “Highguard” section (which links to the currently out-of-commission Highguard website), and the “Contact” page.
Polygon reached out to inquire about the state of both websites, the game itself, and reports that the vast majority of Highguard‘s financial backing reportedly came from a secret partnership with Chinese tech megalith, Tencent. A representative for Wildlight’s PR team declined to comment.
On social media, players are bracing for the worst, especially after a popular account on X that frequently shares video game leaks posted a screenshot that shows Highguard Discord moderator WL_Coronach responding to a player’s inquiry about the website. After searching the official Highguard Discord server, Polygon can confirm that the message is real.
“Not sure on the timeframe, but basically needs to be transferred and simplified,” they said of the Highguard website. “Low priority atm (reputational damage already done). Now we just need to focus on delivering updates and content to improve.”
Given Wildlight’s reluctance to comment publicly on the many issues the game is facing, this message provides the most insight into the studio’s plans for Highguard‘s future. Based on WL_Coronach’s comments, the skeleton crew currently running the studio plans to continue delivering updates. On the other hand, the vast majority of the game’s developers have been laid off, and according to recent comments from former Wildlight character concept artist Cristina Laviña Ferez, some of Highguard‘s planned characters may never appear in-game.
“I’ve got permission from Wildlight to show future content,” Ferez shared in a post on her ArtStation page, showing off a planned character named Onyx. “Unfortunately, Onyx may never see the light in Highguard, but she deserves a fair introduction.”
Ferez previously designed Apex Legends characters like Rampart and Valkyrie before moving to Wildlight. Per her post on ArtStation, she created Highguard character designs from scratch over the course of two to three weeks per character — while also leading the game’s microtransaction team. Like many of her colleagues, Ferez was laid off from Wildlight on Feb. 11, just over two weeks after the game’s Jan. 26 launch.
