Wildlight Entertainment, the studio behind the new heroless shooter High Guardreportedly fired “most” of his team just weeks after the game’s January 26 launch.
Level designer Alex Graner announced the news on his LinkedIn accountsaying he’s looking for what’s next after he and an unknown number of his colleagues were laid off. My city has contacted Wildlight for comment and will update the story if we receive a response.
Unfortunately, like most of the Wildlight team, I was laid off today.
This one really stings because there was a lot of new content that I was really looking forward to and that I and others designed to High Guard.
However, I am excited for my next adventure. If your team or someone you know needs an experienced Level Designer, contact me!
High Guard was announced in December during the Game Awards 2025, and it didn’t go over very well with some aspects of the Internet. Then the Wildlight team went radio silent for weeks until the game finally launched at the end of January and the press and content creators I had some practical time with the game. Response to the final game was a bit lukewarm, although Wildlight was quick to respond to comments about the game’s small 3v3 team compositions in added 5v5 mode during the first week.
Although the game appears to be struggling in terms of concurrent players, director and studio head Chad Grenier said in an interview with Polygon that the team was less concerned with player count and more with creating something that its player base enjoyed. “Whether it’s a thousand or a hundred million people, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “What matters most is that the game is loved by those who played it.”
Updated 02/11/2026, 7:39 p.m. ET: More developers are speaking publicly about the layoffs, reiterating that most of the studio appears to have been impacted.
Today I was fired from Wildlight along with most of the staff. It was the best team I’ve ever worked with, and I’ve never been so invested in a project before. I wouldn’t trade the last 2.5 years for anything. I’m still spinning and I won’t be able to start thinking… pic.twitter.com/AimTVwrJ7N
–Josh Sobel (@Joshiepoo25) February 11, 2026
Updated 02/11/2026, 7:52 p.m. ET: Wildlight provided the following statement:
“Today we have made the incredibly difficult decision to part ways with a number of our team members while retaining a core group of developers to continue to innovate and support the game.
We are proud of the team, the talent and the product we created together. We are also grateful to the players who have tried the game and those who continue to be a part of our community.
