A former Naughty Dog artist will continue to work on games, but is stepping away from live-service for good after the shut down of Highguard.
Del Walker – a prominent vide game artist who has worked on a myriad of titles including The Last of Us Part 2, Suicide Squad, Halo Wars 2 and Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, to name a few – recently shared an “early pass” of a character he helped create for Highguard.
The character in question was a Warden named Condor, “a skilled explorer” who channels her “extrasensory abilities” through her bird companion. You can see her Highguard character trailer below.
Now, with Highguard shutting down just a matter of weeks after it made its debut in January, Walker has shared his artwork designs for Condor.
“This was my early pass of the Highguard character Condor before she was refined in-house,” he wrote on social media, adding while he was only part of the project for a short time, he will “keep putting beautiful Black women in games”. However, he will not be putting them into live-service games.
“Ones that can disappear won’t get my time of energy anymore,” Walker said. When a commenter suggested he pitch his ideas for Deadlock – Valve’s technically unreleased and invite-only shooter – Walker again affirmed his stance on live-service work.
“I do not plan to work on any live-service game again,” he replied. “Successful or not.” You can check out Walker’s Condor artwork in the header above and below.
Highguard closed out The Game Awards 2025, with a trailer introducing us all to a world of battling Wardens and their magical mounts. The game then launched in January, and quickly had a large influx of players on its release. But there were a few complaints as well, with many disappointed with areas such as map size and the 3v3 game format.
The studio sought to address these issues with a number of content updates and patches, while also making its once-limited-time 5v5 mode a permanent feature. However, this was not enough, and dwindling player numbers along with a reported lack of funding have ultimately resulted in Wildlight deciding to cut its losses, and pull the plug on Highguard.
After one last patch earlier this month, Highguard will go offline today, 12th March. It follows other high-profile live-service shut downs and cancellations, including Sony’s 5v5 sci-fi shooter Concord, which was taken offline just two weeks after its PC and PS5 debut, following a lackluster launch and weak sales. The game had been in the works for eight years, it had been said.
