Sony shocks players with surprise Highguard auto-refunds for prior microtransactions

Sony has started rolling out refunds to players who purchased microtransactions in Highguard, even though those players didn't request them, after the game’s servers were sunset on March 12, marking a Concord-level failure. Then again, it’s still surprising for a company like Sony to issue refunds on microtransactions in a now-defunct free-to-play game, as the company is usually strict about this policy.

The news first surfaced in a now-deleted Reddit thread, where a gamer who praised Wildlight’s Highguard during its short tenure confirmed that they had received a notification on their PlayStation stating that their microtransaction purchases in Highguard are scheduled for a full refund. In the now-deleted post, they wrote, “I honestly didn’t care about a refund. I enjoyed the game and enjoyed supporting it, but if you were looking for a refund, they are sending them out.”

According to user reports, microtransaction refunds for Highguard are currently limited to PlayStation gamers, even though the game was released on Steam and Xbox Series X|S. That said, many Steam users who purchased microtransactions have decided to request refunds manually. 

PlayStation gamers in particular were caught off guard, as Sony issued widespread refunds on purchases ranging from battle-pass progression to cosmetic skins around March 17, 2026.

Unfortunately, Highguard’s tenure ended before it even began. The game was revealed at The Game Awards 2025 in December to negative reactions from gamers. The bold “shadow drop” plan, similar to Apex Legends, didn’t work as intended. Highguard peaked at around 100,000 players before plummeting, and the game never recovered its day-one audience.

Wildlight was apparently hit hard by Highguard’s failure. Layoffs reduced the studio's staff to 20 employees, and by early March, the entire team had been terminated. The game failed to meet the performance metrics predicted by Tencent’s TiMi Group, so the servers were permanently shut down on March 12.

Thus, Highguard lived for only six weeks. The studio rolled out a farewell patch, and that was it for the Concord-level failure of Highguard. Wildlight is now officially gone, as the studio’s website and LinkedIn page have been scrubbed clean.

It still isn’t clear whether Microsoft or Steam will issue automatic refunds for Highguard. However, the whole situation just goes to show that live-service titles can crumble within weeks of release when player counts, engagement, and retention fail to add up.