Wildlight Entertainment has confirmed that its multiplayer shooter Highguard will permanently shut down on March 12, and studio head Chad Grenier has now shared additional details about the game’s performance and development following the announcement.
Posting on social media, Grenier addressed the closure while thanking players who spent time with the title during its short lifespan. According to him, more than two million players worldwide tried the game after launch.
“We had slightly over 2 million players worldwide try the game. I would like to thank all of you for giving the game a try. Given all of the backlash between announce and launch day, trying the game for yourself is all I could have asked for. Thank you to our players.”
Grenier also revealed engagement metrics that the studio tracked during the game’s active period. The average player session lasted roughly an hour and a half, with users typically completing several matches in a single sitting.
“Average session duration was 91 minutes. This is actually quite good! This means that on average, a player logged into Highguard and played for 91 minutes. The average games played per session was 3.48 matches per session.”
Platform distribution showed that PlayStation 5 hosted the largest share of the audience. According to Grenier, the console player base was roughly twice the size of the Xbox community, with Steam ranking behind both platforms.
Character usage statistics were also shared, revealing that Scarlet emerged as the most frequently selected character in the roster. Grenier noted that the character originally carried a different name during development.
“Scarlet was the most picked character by a good margin! Fun additional fact, her name was originally Skye, after one of the devs, which is why she shows as skye in our data. Kai, was also named ‘jade’ prior to launch.”
In terms of match outcomes, most games ended when a generator was destroyed, while the second most common result involved players planting an anchor stone. The Vanguard character also recorded the highest number of kills during gameplay.
The United States represented the largest portion of the game’s audience, while Japan ranked as the second largest player base. Grenier also highlighted that 92 percent of players who launched the game completed the introductory training mission, a statistic he compared to early training completion rates seen during the launch period of Apex.
“92% of people who loaded the game for the first time, completed the training mission. This is actually a very healthy number, similar to what we saw at launch with Apex training completion.”
Gameplay mode statistics showed that the original 3v3 format remained the most popular option among players. According to Grenier, the mode continued to outperform both 5v5 and ranked playlists even after additional modes were introduced later.
Highguard launched on January 26, 2026, as a free-to-play PvP raid shooter developed and published by Wildlight Entertainment. Created by a team that includes several developers who previously worked on Respawn Entertainment titles such as Titanfall, the game released on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, and PC.
The title features a hero-based system built around characters known as Wardens, with teams competing to secure a Shieldbreaker sword used to infiltrate enemy strongholds and destroy their defenses. Despite drawing early attention following its reveal at The Game Awards 2025 and reaching nearly 100,000 concurrent players on Steam, the game experienced a sharp decline in player activity. Financial backing from Tencent was later withdrawn, ultimately leading to the decision to shut down the servers less than two months after release.
