In a late-night breaking news story, Sony appears to be issuing automatic refunds on purchases made in the now-defunct Highguard. Posts are slowly trickling in from social media users sharing their notifications showing a return of funds, and it’s a global trend too. One member of the gaming forum ResetEra had their purchase refunded, which prompted them to seek out others to confirm that this wasn’t an error, but with numerous reports still rolling in then it seems to be intentional.
This isn’t the first time Sony has issued refunds automatically for a failed game, and unsurprisingly that other time was Concord. With Highguard having lasted less than two months on the market before closing its servers forever, it’s understandable why Sony would want to prevent any upset customers speaking out about their money in a digital product being able to vanish overnight. The failure of Highguard has been a high-profile one, so it seems like the easy and fair solution to just refund what’s effectively wasted money.
To some, it’s no surprise we’re at this point. The initial trailer for Highguard which unceremoniously closed The Game Awards was met with widespread criticism immediately, with particular emphasis on its art style, live service business approach and derivative hero shooter genre. Despite trying to persist and deliver an update to entice new players, Highguard first saw huge staff layoffs to its developing studio Wildlight Entertainment, which was then followed by the full announcement of its closure.
As of now, Highguard is gone forever. It being held up to the spotlight at The Game Awards was both the start and the end for the failed game, and Sony’s paying out the cash to say sorry. Currently, Steam and Microsoft’s Xbox have seemingly not issued any refunds, but we’ll update this story if they follow.
