A recent report is casting further doubt on the rocky start and unclear future of Highguard, the free-to-play PvP “raid shooter” that quickly went from being highly anticipated to a subject of industry criticism. The report, highlighted by IGN, reveals that the game’s developer, Wildlight Entertainment, was secretly funded by Tencent, a major Chinese tech and gaming company. This financial backing was never made public before the game launched.
Game File revealed that Tencent provided the main financial support for Wildlight, offering new insights into how the studio started and is funded.
Before this information came to light, it wasn’t known who was funding the game’s development, even though reports suggested Highguard had been in production for years before its announcement at The Game Awards in December.
For a long time, Wildlight’s LinkedIn page only stated that the company was a new entertainment studio with full funding.
Who was doing that funding, however, had not been publicly clarified until now.
A Heavily Promoted Reveal That Now Raises Eyebrows
The game’s first reveal caused immediate debate, not only due to the trailer itself, but also because of the heavy-handed way it was presented during the event.
Geoff Keighley, the host of The Game Awards, revealed the news instead of the game studio itself, which was a surprising decision that many viewers noticed.
With reports that Tencent is financially supporting the project, its recent marketing efforts are now being looked at more closely.
Steven Ma, a Senior Vice President at Tencent, is on The Game Awards advisory board. This creates a link between the event and Tencent, a major financial supporter of the gaming industry.
Okay, that explains things. Steven Ma, a high-ranking executive at Tencent, is part of the Game Awards advisory team. That’s why Geoff Keighley was so eager to promote it – it all makes sense now.
— Jordan Hawes (@Jawes_WTMG) February 17, 2026
While there’s no proof the relationship affected the decision, the connection is causing online discussion about whether Highguard was given special attention during the show.
From Awards Stage To Online Mockery
Even before release, Highguard struggled to win over audiences.
The game’s announcement trailer at The Game Awards received a lot of negative feedback online, sparking criticism and doubt. Some content creators even predicted the game would fail based only on the initial preview and its overall style.
A developer later said the project quickly became a failure, tracing the problem back to incorrect ideas that stemmed from the initial reveal trailer.
Despite that early backlash, the game did manage a strong launch window on PC.
As a big fan of shooters, I was really impressed to see Highguard pull in almost 100,000 players on Steam right after it launched. That’s a pretty solid start for a new free-to-play game, honestly!
But the momentum didn’t last.
Reviews Falter As Player Interest Collapses
While launch numbers showed initial curiosity, reception quickly cooled.
Professional critics gave the game mixed reviews, but players generally disliked it. As a result, the number of people playing quickly dropped.
Currently, Steam shows fewer than 1,000 people playing the game at the same time. This is a huge drop in players and a bad sign for a game that needs consistent activity to stay alive.
For a multiplayer-focused shooter, that kind of drop is often viewed as existential.
Mass Layoffs Rock Wildlight Entertainment
Then came the most damaging blow.
Only a few weeks after its release, Wildlight announced that the vast majority of its development team had been let go, which came as a shock to players and those following the gaming industry.
The layoffs immediately raised questions about:
- The game’s financial performance
- Long-term funding stability
- Investor confidence
- The studio’s future viability
After the recent cuts, Wildlight announced it would keep a small team of developers to continue providing support for the game Highguard.
But the scale of the layoffs suggested severe internal disruption.
Did Tencent Pull Funding? Questions Remain
A major question raised by the Game File report is the extent to which Wildlight relied on funding from Tencent, and if that funding situation ever changed.
It remains unclear:
- How heavily the studio relied on Tencent
- Whether funding was reduced or withdrawn
- If financial shifts contributed to the layoffs
Tencent and Wildlight haven’t offered any public explanation, and without official information, rumors and guesswork have taken over.
Website Outage Fuels Shutdown Fears
Now, new developments are intensifying those concerns.
The official website for Highguard has been unavailable for almost a full day now.
That outage has sparked fears that:
- The game could be winding down
- Support may be ending
- The studio itself could be closing
No official explanation has been provided for the downtime.
Websites sometimes go down for scheduled updates or unexpected problems. However, this downtime happened right after the company announced layoffs and details about its funding, which has made players particularly worried.
A Troubled Trajectory From Start To Finish
From its beginning, Highguard has faced an uphill battle:
- A controversial awards-show reveal
- Immediate online backlash
- Mixed critic reception
- Falling player engagement
- Mass layoffs
- Funding questions
- Now, a website outage
As a film and gaming fan, I was really surprised to learn Tencent was secretly funding this project. It just adds another complication to a story that was already messy, and it makes you wonder about how open things really are with these big launches. It also gets you thinking about who’s really calling the shots and whether these ‘live service’ games can actually keep going for the long haul.
Highguard looks to be toast:
– Revealed they faked indie/self-funded status, was Tencent funded all along.
– Website is GONE.
– You can’t even list it as a game on Youtube now.
Was this actually faster than Concord’s implosion? Or just bigger?
— Grummz (@Grummz) February 17, 2026
For now, Wildlight says a skeleton crew remains in place to keep the game operational.
As fewer people play, the game’s systems start to fail, and funding is questioned, the future of Highguard and the company that created it is very much in doubt.
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2026-02-18 18:00