Sony appears to be auto-refunding Highguard players their microtransaction payments

Sony has commenced refunding Highguard payments to PlayStation 5 players.

In a now-deleted thread on Reddit reported by IGN earlier today, a player who had enjoyed their time with Wildlight’s free-to-play hero shooter confirmed that they had received notification the microtransaction payments they’d made over the few weeks Highguard was live were now scheduled to be refunded.

Interestingly, the player said they had not applied for their money back, writing: “I honestly didn’t care for a refund. I enjoyed the game and enjoyed supporting it, but if you were looking for a refund, they are sending them out.”

At the time of writing, it appears the automatic refunds are limited to PlayStation players, although the game was also available on Steam and Xbox Series consoles.

Reports suggested that fewer than 20 people were working at Wildlight following last month’s layoffs, but they too were let go earlier this month because the studio’s financing – which was allegedly from Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group – “was contingent upon hitting certain metrics, such as retention rate, which they’d failed to even come close to achieving.”

Highguard was revealed at The Game Awards last December to a mixed reception. There was little marketing before its January 26 launch, intended to recreate the shadow drop of Apex Legends in 2019. It was closed down permanently earlier this month.