A former Wildlight developer has shared their ideas on Highguard’s launch after its announcement at The Sport Awards final 12 months, stating as a result of “false assumptions” round its debut trailer, “we have been became a joke”.
Highguard closed out The Sport Awards 2025, with a trailer introducing us all to a world of battling Wardens and their magical mounts. The sport then launched in January, and shortly had a big inflow of gamers on its launch. Nonetheless, there have been a couple of complaints as properly, with many disenchanted with areas comparable to map measurement and the 3v3 sport format. The studio sought to deal with these points with a variety of content material updates and patches, whereas additionally making its once-limited-time 5v5 mode a everlasting function.
Regardless of this effort to regain favour, although, yesterday it was introduced that a number of Wildlight builders had been laid off, solely a matter of weeks since Highguard made its free-to-play debut. However in accordance with Highguard’s former lead technical artist Josh Sobel, the staff was doomed from its announcement, and it was “all downhill” after the sport’s reveal on the The Sport Awards.
Writing in a prolonged submit on social media, Sobel stated inner suggestions on Highguard previous to its reveal “was fairly constructive”, and the staff felt assured it had a success on its fingers. The place suggestions was adverse, Sobel stated, “it was constructive, and infrequently actionable”. He added these “who performed the sport, together with us, had a blast. And since we have been an impartial, self-published studio constructed with royalties in thoughts, many people have been hoping this might lastly be the factor that broke the millennial monetary curse”.
However that positivity left after its The Sport Awards trailer. “Content material creators like to level out the bias in of us who give constructive previews after being flown out for an occasion, however ignore the truth that when their negative-leaning content material will get 10x the engagement of the constructive, they have simply as a lot incentive to lean right into a disingenuous path, whether or not consciously or not,” Sobel stated. “The hate began instantly.”
Sobel quickly locked his X profile after Highguard’s trailer, stating movies have been then made about his “cowardice”, with folks laughing at him for “being proud” of Highguard. “All of this was very emotionally taxing,” he stated.
“There may be a lot constructive criticism that may be and has been stated about Highguard’s trailer, advertising, and launch, however I don’t suppose it’s my place to commentate on that. I additionally do not suppose there’s any approach to know whether or not the launch would have fared higher or worse with out the huge highlight that was thrown onto us in response to The Sport Awards’ trailer placement. However we by no means acquired that probability,” Sobel continued.
“We have been became a joke from minute one, largely as a result of false assumptions a few million-dollar advert placement, which even distinguished journalists quickly started to state as truth. Inside minutes, it was determined: this sport was useless on arrival, and creators now had free ragebait content material for a month. Each one in all our movies on social media acquired downvoted to hell. Feedback sections have been flooded with copy/paste meme phrases comparable to ‘Harmony 2’ and ‘Titanfall 3 died for this’. At launch, we obtained over 14k assessment bombs from customers with lower than an hour of playtime. Many did not even end the required tutorial.”
Sobel remarked that in on-line discussions about video games like Highguard, Harmony and 2XKO, folks are inclined to say builders blame their failures on the players. Nonetheless, Sobel says that may be a “foolish” notion, as players nonetheless have the ability to tell discourse.
“I am not saying our failure is only the fault of gamer tradition and that the sport would have thrived with out the adverse discourse, nevertheless it completely performed a job,” Sobel stated. “All merchandise are on the whims of the shoppers, and the shoppers put absurd quantities of effort into slandering Highguard. And it labored.”
There isn’t any denying the sting and harm in Sobel phrases, however whereas he might sound bitter about how issues have finally panned out, it’s undeniably a disgrace to see a sport stumble out of the beginning gate. To be clear, Highguard itself has not been shut down, with a “core group” of builders nonetheless engaged on it. For a way for much longer, who can say. However regardless of the finish end result, it’s by no means good to see a sport ‘fail’, and listen to about layoffs throughout the trade.
As for Sobel, he stated that “regardless that this journey has come to an abrupt and emotionally difficult shut” for him, he does not “remorse one second of it”.
Following its rocky debut, different builders throughout the trade additionally voiced their assist for Highguard, with Splitgate: Enviornment Reloaded studio 1047 Video games stating:
“No sport is ideal on day one.”
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