Highguard is shutting down on March 12 after failing to maintain a large enough player base

Highguard had a strong start when it first launched, reaching around 97,000 concurrent players on Steam. However, that momentum did not last long. Within a single day, the game lost the majority of its player base, and the numbers continued to fall in the weeks that followed.

Since then, the situation has only gotten worse. Player counts kept declining, eventually dropping to extremely low levels. Yesterday, the game reached a new low with only 122 players online. With such small numbers, it became difficult for the developers to keep the game running. And now the team has confirmed that the servers will be shut down permanently.

Highguard's servers will go offline next week

In a post shared on X, the official Highguard account announced that the game will shut down on March 12. The developers explained that while the team worked hard on the project, they were not able to maintain a large enough player base to support the game in the long term.  

Even though the shutdown has been confirmed, the servers will remain online until March 12. The developers are encouraging players to jump back in during the final days and play a few more matches before the game goes offline. On top of that, the team is preparing one last update before the shutdown. This final patch will add a new Warden character, a new weapon, account level progression, and skill trees.

Ever since Highguard launched, there were different indications that the game might eventually shut down. The first major one was the player count dropping sharply right after release. Then, just a few weeks later, the studio ended up laying off most of its staff, which made many think the future of the game was uncertain. At one point, one of the ex developers even blamed content creators for the game’s failure, saying that the game was labeled a failure before it ever really had a fair chance.