- Primary Subject: Highguard [End-of-Life / Shutdown]
- Key Update: Highguard officially ceased operations on March 12, 2026, fueling a heated industry debate over live-service volatility and the permanent erasure of digital art.
- Status: Confirmed
- Last Verified: March 14, 2026
- Quick Answer: Highguard shut down on March 12, 2026, due to low player retention and funding cuts, leaving the game unplayable as servers were permanently taken offline.
Highguard was officially shut down as of March 12 following its turbulent release, and I cannot be angrier. To be brutally honest, I was one of the people who immediately saw something was wrong with Highguard’s presentation, monetization, and gameplay loop, but I had high hopes that the developers would find a fix.
Instead, years of development were flushed down the drain after just weeks of playability. What sucks more is that this isn’t even a new trend in gaming! There have been tons of games that have been shut down and erased from online sources after horrible releases, and I believe it’s harming the industry.
When a game shuts down, one of the more intrusive thoughts that pops into my head is that it would have survived if only more people were playing it. That said, I also want to recognize how much of a mistake this line of thinking is. No company should ever guilt-trip their fans into playing an underbaked mess, especially one as boring as the likes of EA’s Concord. For games to last long, it’s up to the developers and publishers to try to convince players to stick with the franchise for a long time. If you ever felt like playing a video game felt like an obligation to save a franchise, then you shouldn’t.
Another reason why it shouldn’t be the player’s fault is that of games like Paladins, The Crew, and even Kojima’s P.T. playable teaser, where players are still active and yearning. Paladins specifically shouldn’t even be in operation right now, but because of a recent resurgence in popularity (nostalgia or not), there are still people playing. So when you’re shutting down a video game, effectively erasing it from existence, you’re not just burying a product; you’re burying someone’s favorite game along with it. And that’s the exact opposite of what video games should make you feel.
Now that I’ve taken the weight of guilt away from the players, I want to take away some guilt from the developers. One of the news pieces that really broke my heart during this Highguard fiasco was that the developers really thought they had something special. Of course, the developers were sure the game wasn’t Video Game Awards Final Trailer worthy, but they didn’t think their game was bad. The developers loved the game, and it showed. The game wasn’t really horrible; it just landed a bit lukewarm and needed some more time to take in player feedback and adjust. The plug was pulled early due to the bottom line.
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Sadly, the bottom line is the reality of the gaming industry. If a product doesn’t perform well, it's immediately cut off to avoid any sunk costs. This is especially true for online or live-service games that rely on server maintenance, because that level of upkeep is sure to wear any game down. To that, I’d like to bring up Team Fortress 2. A game whose sole existence as of now has been fully supported by fans, with the occasional visit from passionate developers who want to keep the game running. Why can’t that same patience be given to other developers?
Video games are an art form. This statement was widely contested at the time, but it has since become a universal truth. Some developers have put in blood, sweat, and tears to collaborate and produce the final product, yet publishers who sunset their games often disregard this. For some games, sunsetting doesn’t just mean you can’t play them online anymore; it means the game is removed from the online archive and rendered unplayable. There is just something about erasing a work of art, such as video games, that strikes me as super wasteful and disrespectful to the art form.
Thinking about it now, there are players out there who won’t be able to play games like Evolve, Anthem, Concord, and Highguard. That’s an entire world of experience and effort that publishers just took away from everyone just because the game wasn’t profitable enough. This is a level of media erasure that rivals the Library of Alexandria, and it’s still happening. The outrage is especially true if you’re like one of the people in the class action lawsuit against Ubisoft who paid for a digital product, only for it to be ripped out of your hands because Ubisoft didn’t want to support the game anymore.
Although profit and success are important parts of a video game, they shouldn’t be the only measure of greatness. Case in point: imagine a world where CD Projekt Red decided to sunset the entire Cyberpunk 2077 franchise because of its reception. Yeah, catastrophic.
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