Highguard was reportedly secretly funded by Tencent, and if that kind of backer can't offer more than two weeks of life I don't know what hope a multiplayer FPS has in 2026

Una's Fables skin in Highguard shows her with a big gun slung over her shoulder and some brown gas in front of the moon — (Image credit: Wildlight Entertainment)

The future for Highguard does not look bright. Developer Wildlight went through mass layoffs barely two weeks after launch, and if the game can stage a comeback at this point, it'll be something beyond a miracle. Today, however, a bizarre twist in the Highguard saga has emerged, as a new report suggests Chinese megapublisher Tencent financially backed the game.

Tencent's TiMi Studio Group, which makes games including Pokemon Unite and Delta Force, "was the undisclosed lead financial backer" behind Wildlight, according to Game File. Exact details of the arrangement, including the amount of funding, when or if it ended, and why it was never publicly disclosed were not provided by the outlet's sources.

Whether Highguard was ever good enough to earn a chance – much less a second chance – is a matter of some debate, but the initially dismal Steam reviews did improve slightly and major updates did come quickly. Yet the game hasn't even had a month on the market before its investors started trying to cut their losses.

The incredibly competitive world of online gaming is notoriously tough to break into for any new project, and day one success stories are rare. But between Sony's Concord, Riot's 2XKO, and now Highguard, it feels like the runway is getting shorter with every failure. If (alleged) Tencent money isn't enough to give developers a meaningful shot at finding their audience, I can't imagine what hope any big multiplayer game has in 2026.

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Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.

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