Highguard studio begins layoffs just two weeks after launch

Highguard has been out for just two weeks and despite an initially strong launch and a year-long content roadmap ahead, player numbers have quickly dropped. Now, the studio behind it is laying off a large portion of the development team. 

In an announcement last night, Wildlight Entertainment confirmed that it has made the “incredibly difficult decision to part ways” with a chunk of Highguard's development team. Moving forward, Wildlight will retain “a core group of developers to continue innovating and supporting the game”.

Layoffs are pretty typical in the videogame industry. Studios regularly shed staff shortly after shipping a project, but for live service games, the situation is a little different, as companies need to retain a certain team size to achieve their content roadmap goals.

It is unclear at this time if this firing spree will have any significant impact on the game's planned content roadmap, which involves new maps, weapons, game modes and more in the coming months.

KitGuru Says: Riot also just let go of a large number of developers just two weeks after launching its new fighting game 2XKO. It would seem that expectations for the first two weeks of new projects like this are climbing astronomically high. 

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