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Hyped Free-To-Play Game Hit With Major Layoffs Less Than 3 Weeks After Launch
The Live Service genre is a difficult space to navigate these days, and over the past few years, players have seen games launch with all the promise in the world only to find themselves struggling for survival weeks or, in some cases, even days later. That also has a direct effect on the studios at the helm of these projects, and unfortunately, that’s the case once again, as a hyped free-to-play game has had its studio hit with major layoffs less than three weeks after its big launch.
Earlier today, several employees of Wildlight Entertainment, the studio behind the hyped new free-to-play game Highguard, started posting that they were out of work on LinkedIn, and through those posts, it was learned that most of the team had been affected by those layoffs. Now, Wildlight has officially confirmed that it has parted ways with a number of staff and has kept a core group of developers to continue working on Highguard. This comes less than 3 weeks after the game’s much-talked-about launch, but that launch ran into several challenges along the way.
Highguard Isn’t The Only High Profile Game To Be Hit With Major Layoffs
While Highguard is the most recent studio to get hit with layoffs after launch, it’s not the only high-profile game that has been hit with layoffs over the past month. That’s because Riot Games recently revealed that it was significantly reducing the size of the team behind its recent fighting game 2XKO. 2XKO just launched on January 20th, and now it has already experienced a substantial layoff to the team that made the game a reality.
Riot Games posted an official update on their blog, revealing that while “the game has resonated with a passionate core audience”, the “overall momentum hasn’t reached the level needed to support a team of this size long term.” Riot Games says that this smaller, focused team is going to dig in and make key improvements to 2XKO, and the studio says that they are “reshaping the team to give 2XKO a more sustainable path forward.”
Highguard and 2XKO couldn’t be more different in terms of their gameplay, but they share a host of unfortunate similarities in everything else. Both were free to play games coming out in an already crowded space, which already includes two heavyweights duking it out for supremacy in Marvel Rivals and Overwatch, the latter of which just debuted a major overhaul. That’s on top of Fortnite, Genshin Impact, Apex Legends, Valorant, Where Winds Meet, and FragPunk, and that’s just a few of the current titles in the mix right now.
While their journeys to release are vastly different, with 2XKO having a full beta period while Highguard was only revealed shortly before release, they still struggled with their launches. Then there’s the similar issue of the studio being able to actually back these games for the long haul, and it seems that wasn’t really feasible unless they both managed to gain overnight success. That wasn’t the case for either game, and now their studios are shrinking their teams in a major way, putting the future into question.
At this point, Highguard seems in a more precarious position than 2XKO. While Highguard perhaps has the higher ceiling, 2XKO has the bigger company behind it. Granted, that doesn’t mean Riot Games won’t eventually shut down the game, but at least there’s an infrastructure in place. With Wildlight, there’s not the same confidence and other tentpole releases to rely on for stability. It’s a shame too, because Highguard still has immense promise, and even in its current form is actually quite fun. Hopefully, both games can find a way to get a second run as they make updates, but it’s not a given in either case.
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