Highguard Studio Was Backed By Tencent, Reports Say

Since the tumultuous reveal of Highguard during 2025’s The Game Awards, there’s been a question as to where the funding for the game’s studio, Wildlight Entertainment, came from. Multiple new reports point to Tencent being among the backers.

According to The Game Business and Game File, Chinese internet behemoth Tencent funded Wildlight, at least in part, by way of the company’s TiMi division. Game File’s report said Tencent was the “lead financial backer.”

Wildlight described itself as a “fully-funded” studio on its website, but the team never explained what that meant or where its funding came from. On January 27, GameSpot asked the Highguard team if it could share any further information about funding sources, but the company never replied. In the wake of the reporting that Tencent funded Wildlight, a spokesperson for Wildlight told GameSpot on February 17 that it had no further information to share.

As of the publishing of this article, it is unclear as to whether Tencent’s connection to Wildlight had any bearing on the layoffs that hit the studio mere weeks after Highguard’s launch.

Obviously, a connection doesn’t necessarily mean there’s any correlation. Just because Tencent put a lot of money into Wildlight, it doesn’t necessarily mean Tencent has any sway on the Wildlight team. Tencent, after all, has investments big and small in numerous video game companies.

“Historically, Tencent has been a regular investor in new teams,” The Game Business editor-in-chief and co-founder Christopher Dring posted online. “You’d be surprised at how many other devs have ‘secret’ (but not actually secret) Tencent backing.”

The exact terms of Tencent’s reported funding deal with Wildlight are not available, so, to be sure, there is a lot we don’t know about the nature of the business arrangement.

Back in January, Wildlight boss Dusty Welch told The Game Business, “We’re an independent studio without the support of a big organization.” Welch declined to share specifics about Wildlight’s funding sources when asked by Bloomberg.

“We don’t really speak publicly about the business, and the economics and the financials of our company,” he said.

Since it has come to light that Tencent reportedly funded Wildlight, people have pointed out that Tencent’s Steven Ma is on the advisory board for The Game Awards alongside the likes of Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer, AMD CEO Lisa Chu, EA president Laura Miele, and many others. Ma being on the board doesn’t necessarily mean much of anything. The Game Awards host and organizer Geoff Keighley championed Highguard and even gave Wildlight the final slot of the evening for free, when he was charging as much as $1 million for other spots–this has raised some eyebrows.

Wildlight had previously laid out a year’s worth of post-launch content for Highguard. The layoffs at Wildlight cut the team down to a “core” group, so it remains to be seen if the promised content is coming.

Regardless, Highguard has had a rough go at it–and by extension, the Wildlight team has been put through the ringer in 2026. The game’s reveal at The Game Awards was not well-received online, disrupting team morale at Wildlight going into the new year.

When Highguard did finally launch in January 2026, it was met by largely middling reviews from critics. In GameSpot’s Highguard review, Stella Chung wrote, “In its current state, Highguard is an aggressively okay game that needs a lot of work.”

In the weeks that followed those reviews, layoffs at Wildlight led to a further downturn in team morale for those still left at the studio. Then the official Highguard website went down, and as of publishing this article, it has not come back. One wonders if Highguard is long for this world, or if it will go the way of so many other live-service games before it.

A laid-off Wildlight developer wrote an impassioned blog post that ran through the situation surrounding Highguard pre- and post-release, saying “the future looked bright” until Highguard was shown at The Game Awards. The developer later deactivated their account.

Source link