Tencent Secretly Funded Highguard, as Troubled Launch Leads to Layoffs

Chinese gaming giant Tencent was the undisclosed lead financial backer of Wildlight Entertainment, the studio behind the free-to-play first-person multiplayer shooter Highguard, sources familiar with the matter revealed on February 17, 2026. Neither company had previously discussed the financial relationship and representatives for both did not provide comment as of press time.

Highguard’s Difficult Launch and Subsequent Layoffs

The funding revelation comes as Highguard faces significant challenges following its January 26, 2026 launch. Just two weeks after release, Wildlight Entertainment confirmed layoffs impacting the vast majority of its development team. This decision was made after the game failed to maintain a sufficient player base to justify continued support at its current scale [TheGamer].

Despite debuting in the top 10 in weekly active users on US Steam and reaching the top 20 on both US PlayStation and Xbox [IGN], Highguard experienced a rapid decline in player numbers. The game peaked at 97,249 concurrent players on Steam on launch day, but fell to just 4,524 players two weeks later [IGN].

Development Challenges and Unreleased Content

According to former senior level designer Alex Graner, Highguard was in development for at least 2.5 years. The layoffs resulted in the cancellation of a significant amount of unreleased content that Graner and other developers had designed for the game [IGN]. The game initially launched with a 3v3 competitive mode, but a 5v5 mode was implemented shortly after release in response to player feedback regarding the small scale of the original mode [IGN].

Wildlight’s Response

Wildlight Entertainment stated that the layoffs were an “incredibly difficult decision” made to allow the company to continue innovating on and supporting the game with a core group of developers [IGN].