Another popular live-service game is shutting down soon: this time it's the free-to-play squad shooter Highguard. Developer Wildlight Entertainment has announced that, despite Highguard reaching 2 million players, the game will be shutting down for good on March 12.It's worth noting that the game was released about two months ago, on January 26.
"Despite our team's passion and hard work, we were unable to build a sustainable player base to support the game in the long term," the studio explained.
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Highguard: A new update before the final closure
Before the game stops working for good, it will receive one last update, which will add a new character and weapon, among other changes.
Despite a sensational reveal at The Game Awards in December, things didn't go well for Highguard, the first release from Wildlight, a studio founded by former developers of series like Apex Legends, Call of Duty, and Titanfall.
Wildlight laid off most of its staff in February, and a week later Highguard's website went down, raising concerns that the game may have been discontinued.
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It's an abrupt end for Highguard, but this short-lived run for live-service games is becoming increasingly common. For example, Sony shut down sci-fi shooter Concord and its studio within a matter of weeks, even though the game had been in development for eight years.
And 2XKO , a new fighting game from League of Legends creator Riot , also appears to be in jeopardy. Its development team suffered layoffs just weeks after launch.
All of this comes as publishers and developers continue to chase the high player counts and steady revenue streams that come from big live-service hits like Fortnite. However, the space continues to prove extremely difficult to break into, with recent hits like Arc Raiders being extremely rare. Even single-player-focusedlike Remedy, the creator of Alan Wake, have tried to expand into live-service releases with less than impressive results.
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Still, despite the canceled games and studio closures, the pursuit of live-services doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon: even after the cutback in space, Sony continues to support upcoming games like Marathon and a co-op spinoff of Horizon.
