{"id":891727,"date":"2026-02-11T22:12:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T04:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/11\/wildlight-entertainment-reportedly-lays-off-staff-within-weeks-of-first-games-launch\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T22:12:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T04:12:07","slug":"wildlight-entertainment-reportedly-lays-off-staff-within-weeks-of-first-games-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/11\/wildlight-entertainment-reportedly-lays-off-staff-within-weeks-of-first-games-launch\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildlight Entertainment reportedly lays off staff within weeks of first game’s launch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Entertainment <\/p>\n

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Alissa McAloon<\/a>, Editorial Director<\/span>, GameDeveloper.com<\/span><\/p>\n

February 11, 2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/span>1 Min Read<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Wildlight Entertainment has reportedly laid off a significant portion of its staff, a move that comes within weeks of the launch of its inaugural game, the free-to-play hero shooter <\/span>Highguard<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Early reports of layoffs at the studio have started to circulate on LinkedIn, with <\/span>one impacted developer<\/a><\/span> saying that “most” of the studio’s 100-plus developers have been impacted. Since that post, other developers with previous employment at Wildlight have started to post on LinkedIn in search of work.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Unfortunately, along with most of the team at Wildlight, I was laid off today,” reads a post from a former Wildlight developer. “This one really stings as there was a lot of unreleased content I was really looking forward to that I and others designed for <\/span>Highguard<\/span><\/span>.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Game Developer has reached out to Wildlight Entertainment for comment.<\/span><\/p>\n

The studio itself was set up in 2022 by former Respawn developers Apex Legends design director Jason McCord and COO & Apex GM Dusty Welch. At the time, Wildlight said it was already years into the development of its first title. That game, <\/span>Highguard<\/span><\/span>, would later be revealed at the 2025 Game Awards and release one month later for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Related:<\/span>Mattel acquires control of mobile studio Mattel163 from NetEase<\/a><\/p>\n

The title currently sits with a “Mixed” review score on Steam with around 23,000 reviews, while the third-party tool SteamDB indicates a <\/span>dwindling player count\u00a0<\/a><\/span>on PC since release.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Entertainment About the Author<\/h2>\n
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\"Entertainment<\/a><\/p>\n

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Editorial Director, GameDeveloper.com<\/p>\n

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As the Editorial Director of Game Developer, Alissa McAloon brings a decade of experience in the video game industry and media. When not working in the world of B2B game journalism, Alissa enjoys spending her time in the worlds of immersive sandbox games or dabbling in the occasional TTRPG.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Alissa McAloon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alissa McAloon , Editorial Director , GameDeveloper.com February 11, 2026 1 Min Read Wildlight Entertainment has reportedly laid off a significant portion of its staff, a move that comes within weeks of the launch of its inaugural game, the free-to-play hero shooter Highguard . Early reports of layoffs at the studio have started to circulate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":891728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1798,119252],"tags":[14293,119251],"class_list":{"0":"post-891727","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"category-wildlight","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-wildlight"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=891727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/891728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=891727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=891727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=891727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}