Highguard Studio Got Secret Financial Backing From Tencent’s TiMi Group – Rumor

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Former employees of Wildlight Entertainment, the studio behind Highguard, have said the company operated independently. However, a recent report by Stephen Totilo at Game File suggests Tencent may have been providing financial support. Neither Wildlight nor Tencent has publicly acknowledged this potential funding, and both have remained silent when asked for comment.

It appears TiMi Studio Group provided funding for the studio, acting as the main, but hidden, financial supporter. Surprisingly, employees at the studio didn’t seem to know about this funding, which was described as one of several unusual aspects of the studio’s operations. Despite the financial support, Wildlight Entertainment remains technically independent and TiMi doesn’t own any part of it.

Earlier this month, the studio experienced layoffs because of poor reception to their player-versus-player shooting game. Although the studio didn’t disclose how many people were affected, they announced they are keeping a small team to continue working on the game.

We’ve made the very tough decision to reduce our team size, but we’re retaining a core group of developers to keep improving and supporting the game. We’re proud of everything our team has accomplished and thankful to the players who have tried and continue to enjoy the game and be part of our community.

Josh Sobel, a former technical artist and rigger on the game, wrote a detailed post about the release of Highguard and the criticism it received. He described Wildlight Entertainment as a studio that was independently run by its developers, even with financial backing from Tencent’s TiMi Studio Group, suggesting that TiMi didn’t dictate the game’s creative direction.

The situation is worsening for the game Highguard. While it initially attracted nearly 100,000 players on PC (according to SteamDB), it has since lost most of its audience. Currently, the game peaks at around 1,500 players per day, and has been averaging under 3,000 players over the last week.

There’s growing concern about the future of the game Highguard because its website has been down all day. The development studio hasn’t said anything about the outage, and their last public announcement was about layoffs on February 12th. The game’s social media hasn’t been updated much since then, beyond posting patch notes.

Highguard came out on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S in January, following its initial reveal with a trailer at The Game Awards 2025. The reveal sparked some debate, and even a studio co-founder, Chad Grenier, admitted it was a bit of a gamble. Since then, Wildlight has consistently updated the game, most recently with a significant Episode 2 patch earlier this month.

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2026-02-18 14:41