PlayStation has now begun automatically refunding players who spent money on "Highguard," which is a free-to-play hero shooter that shut down on March 12, 2026, within just 45 days after it launched. Players who purchased cosmetics, skins, or the game's battle pass through the PlayStation Store received unexpected refund emails from Sony on March 17, with no request needed on their part. The refunds currently seem limited to PS5, with no confirmed equivalent yet on Steam or Xbox.
Highguard launched on January 26, 2026, and peaked at nearly 97,000 concurrent players on Steam within its first hour, then bled 90% of its audience within a single week. By late February, peak concurrent players had fallen below 600. Entertainment, which is the studio founded by veterans of Apex Legends and Titanfall, laid off the majority of its staff in mid-February, pushed one last update on March 4, and shut the servers down eight days later.
The studio's website is now offline; its founder has updated LinkedIn to show his tenure at Wildlight ended in March 2026, and the company's LinkedIn page has been deleted entirely. The reasons for its failure were revealed at "The Game Awards." A game design that was too punishing for casual players, an over-reliance on a single major funder whose money evaporated at the worst possible moment, and a market already saturated with entrenched titles that players refuse to abandon for newcomers.
Highguard is now drawing direct comparisons to Sony's own Concord. Concord was a game that shut down after just 14 days in 2024 and became a symbol of an industry gamble.
Highguard:
It was a free-to-play PvP raid shooter developed by Wildlight Entertainment, a studio co-founded by industry veterans including Dusty Welch and Jason McCord. The studio was staffed by roughly 60 developers, many of whom launched "Apex Legends," "Titanfall," and "Call of Duty titles." When Wildlight was announced, it described itself as "fully funded," which later reporting from Bloomberg confirmed that it meant primary backing from Chinese gaming conglomerate "Tencent."
This game featured 3v3 competitive matches, hero-style character abilities, mounted combat, and destructible environments. It was positioned as a premium competitive experience on a free-to-play foundation, which was monetized through cosmetics and a battle pass, not through pay-to-win mechanics.
Highguard was revealed at The Game Awards 2025 in December as the event's final world premiere. The reveal generated significant attention, but immediately sparked a negative backlash online, with many viewers dismissing the trailer's tone and comparing it unfavorably to existing shooters.
The Timeline of Shutdown in 45 Days:
Highguard also had internal design problems as well. Senior level designer "Alex Graner" described the game on a podcast as having "leaned too far into the competitive scene." The 3v3 format, while intended to reduce matchmaking friction, created an extremely high skill floor. Every individual mistake was magnified in a small-team format; casual players were punished harshly and left quickly.
Developer "Josh Sobel" also acknowledged that toxic online discourse following Game Awards reveal "may have accelerated the timeline of our failure beyond the natural outcome of reasonable critique". Studio head "Chad Grenier" pointed out that without Tencent's continued backing funds, there was "not enough revenue to keep anyone employed to work on it."
Sony's decision to automatically refund Highguard players on PlayStation mirrors exactly what Sony did with Concord in 2024. Anyways, what are your thoughts on Highguard? Have you tried this game before? Let me know all your answers in the comments, where you can also provide the latest news so I can make a breakdown of it.