Highguard Has Just Reached a Brutal New Low

Highguard, the controversial PvP raid shooter from Wildlight Entertainment, has just reached an abysmal new low on Steam, as its playercount falls to as low as 253 concurrent players on the platform. Initially peaking at just under 100,000 concurrent players on Steam at launch, Highguard has struggled to maintain interest from its playerbase, with numbers declining by nearly 100%, despite continued support and new updates from the studio.

Highguard made its unexpected reveal during last year's Game Awards ceremony, shocking viewers as it took the final spot of the night over the likes of Star Wars: Fate of The Old Republic, a new Divinity game, Tomb Raider Catalyst, and many more. Reports later emerged that Highguard didn't even pay for the coveted Game Awards spot, as host Geoff Keighley apparently enjoyed the game so much that he insisted on its premiere being at the event. Wildlight Entertainment's initial plan was to shadow drop the shooter for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, but its reveal may have done the title more harm than good.

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By Daniel Morris

Highguard's Player Count Just Hit a Brutal New Low on Steam

Although Wildlight's first title launched to an impressive 97,000 concurrent players on Steam, Highguard's player count fell by a drastic 80% in the days after its release. Now things seem to be going from bad to worse, as SteamDB shows that the shooter hit a new low this week, with just 253 concurrent players on February 26. Of course, this doesn't take into account those playing on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, but as PC's most popular platform, these types of figures are never a good sign. Even at peak hours, Highguard appears to be struggling to maintain 600 - 700 concurrent players over the last few days. The last time it achieved more than 1,000 active players on the platform was February 22.

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After Highguard's player count plummeted in the days after its release, Wildlight Entertainment co-founder Chad Grenier told Polygon that it "doesn't matter" how many people play Highguard. Instead, Grenier said that the studio was more concerned about Highguard being loved by the people who do play it, regardless of whether it's a thousand people or a hundred million people.

Despite the limited number of people actually playing Highguard, that hasn't stopped those remaining at Wildlight Entertainment from releasing a steady stream of new content updates. Its first major patch came shortly after the game's launch last month, adding a permanent 5v5 mode following player feedback that 3v3 was not enough people for the scale of the maps. Further updates have been released since, with the most recent Highguard patch having been released today, February 26. According to the official patch notes, the update not only introduces numerous quality-of-life improvements, weapon balance changes, and bug fixes, but also adds a new game mode known as Raid Rush.

Assuming that figures are just as bad on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, it's unclear how much longer Highguard can realistically survive. Wildlight Entertainment recently suffered mass layoffs, less than one month after it shipped its first title. A statement from the studio said it had made the difficult decision to part ways with a number of team members, but noted that a "core group of developers" was sticking around to continue innovating on and supporting Highguard with new updates.