Highguard Dev Wildlight Appears to Have Quietly Shut Its Doors – WGB

Earlier this month, the servers for Highguard went dark. Now, it seems to be just like the studio behind the ill-fated hero shooter may need quietly adopted it into the void.

MP1ST suggests the studio has shut its doors, pointing towards each the studio’s LinkedIn web page and official web site being taken offline in the previous few days. On the time of writing, nonetheless, there was no formal announcement confirming the studio’s destiny. Authorized paperwork, nonetheless, do appear to point the studio is all however shuttered at this level.

Wildlight had already suffered a tough few months previous to Highguard’s shutdown. The free-to-play shooter launched in January and drew a powerful early viewers, however momentum didn’t final lengthy. Participant numbers shortly dwindled and, in response to studies, funding associate Tencent pulled assist in February, triggering widespread layoffs that reportedly affected the vast majority of the studio’s roughly 200 workers.

A small staff was stated to stay behind to assist the sport within the brief time period, however that effort didn’t final lengthy. Wildlight introduced earlier this month that Highguard would completely shut down on March 12, taking the sport offline lower than two months after launch.

Digging into public enterprise data in California sheds slightly extra gentle on the state of affairs. Wildlight’s authorized entity is registered in Delaware and nonetheless seems to be energetic there, that means the corporate technically exists on paper. It has not been dissolved and might be resurrected.

Nevertheless, its skill to function in California — the place the studio’s Beverly Hills workplace was situated — seems to have been terminated after required filings lapsed. In the image above, taken from the California Secretary of State’s website, it exhibits the Wildlight Leisure identify reservation as inactive.

In easy phrases, meaning the corporate might theoretically nonetheless exist legally, but it surely at present can’t conduct official enterprise in California.

Taken alongside the obvious disappearance of workers and the shutdown of Highguard, the state of affairs paints the image of a studio which will have successfully closed its doorways, even when the paperwork hasn’t totally caught up but.

For now, although, Wildlight’s destiny stays within the realm of “very doubtless” reasonably than confirmed reality. If the studio really has shut down fully, it might mark a remarkably quick collapse for a developer based by veterans of Apex Legends and Titanfall, and whose debut challenge solely launched a matter of weeks in the past.

Lastly, a enjoyable reality: the filings additionally present that Wildlight started in 2021 underneath the identify of Pantheon Studios, doing enterprise underneath the identify of Novaboss Studios. An official identify change to Wildlight Leisure was filed in 2023.