And there it is: Highguard is shutting down next week

One more update will drop before it does

The above headline will not be a particularly surprising one, but just to make sure it's absolutely clear, developer Wildlight have confirmed that their raid shooter Highguard will be closing its servers from next week, March 12th. The team confirmed as much in a post shared to the game's official Twitter account, where it went into (very little) detail about what's next.

Player numbers very much are not something worth considering in the health or even reporting of a game, but I'll mention it here all the same as it's in this announcement post: more than two million people played Highguard, a number that should be impressive, but is indicative of the fact that you can have a city's worth of people playing and still not survive. If that isn't enough for the suits, what is?

"Despite the passion and hard work of our team, we have not been able to build a sustainable player base to support the game long term," the post explains. "Servers will remain online until March 12th. We hope you’ll jump in with us one more time to show your support and get those final great matches in while we still can."

While the game will be unplayable come next week's end, there is actually one more update planned for release, with the intention to release it tonight earliest, tomorrow morning (presumably US time) latest. It'll come with a new Warden, a new weapon, account level progression, and skill trees. None of this will be available for very long, obviously, but I can only imagine the remaining staff members (a reminder that most of the team was laid off in February) don't want their work to go to waste.

It'll probably be a while before we get a complete picture of what led to Highguard's demise, but a recent report that spoke with former staff did suggest the "hubris" of Wildlight's leadership is part of it.

As it stands, there's no word from Wildlight as to the future of the studio itself. I hope those still there are able to land comfortably on their feet, whatever is next.