Highguard developer Wildlight Entertainment didn’t pay The Game Awards organizers to have the game be showcased in the show’s finale, according to multiple reports.
Game journalists Imran Khan and Paul Tassi have both reported that, based on what they’ve heard, Highguard developer Wildlight Entertainment didn’t actually pay for The Game Awards 2025 finale spot. Khan clarified that developers are required to pay to showcase their games at The Game Awards in general, but the decision of where to put it in the show is with the organizer, Geoff Keighley. He argued that the show “screwed [Wildlight Entertainment] a little with that placement there.”
Twitter/X user BainWolf responded to Tassi’s post, saying that they heard The Game Awards organizers hadn’t planned to have Highguard close the show, and that the game originally planned for the finale got delayed. According to them, Keighley subsequently asked Wildlight Entertainment if it wanted the final slot and the developer agreed. Going by this claim, it would appear that while Keighley found Highguard worthy of taking the show’s finale spot, the decision to go ahead with it was still left to the developer. Tassi agreed that this information would make the most sense.
For the uninitiated, Highguard is developed by people behind games like Apex Legends and Titanfall. It is a PvP raid-focused shooter that puts players in the role of Wardens i.e. mystical gunslingers who ride into combat to contest a legendary continent. They will face off against opposing Warden squads to claim the powerful Shieldbreaker, before launching assaults on enemy strongholds to seize control of territory. According to the game’s Steam store page, the PC version will require an Intel Core i5-6600K or AMD Ryzen R5 1600, 8 GB RAM, an Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB or AMD RX 580 8 GB, and 25 GB of available SSD space at minimum.
Highguard is set for release on January 26, 2026, across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Windows PC.
