Former Highguard Developer Reflects on Disastrous Announcement and Launch: 'We Were Turned Into a Joke From Minute 1'

A developer who worked connected Highguard has discussed the "hate" helium received aft the free-to-play shooter debuted astatine December's The Game Awards, saying the game, and by hold its team, "turned into a gag from infinitesimal one, mostly owed to mendacious assumptions astir a million-dollar advertisement placement."

Just 2 weeks aft the free-to-play game's January 26 launch, yesterday Wildlight fto spell each but a "core radical of developers" contempt the recently unveiled Episode 2, and contempt debuting successful the apical 10 successful play progressive users connected US Steam, and the apical 20 connected some US PlayStation and Xbox.

Now, successful a candid connection posted to X/Twitter, tech creator and rigger Josh Sobel — who was 1 of those fto spell — talked astir the interaction of the motorboat connected himself and the wellbeing of the full team.

"The time starring to The Game Awards 2025 was amongst the astir breathtaking of my life. After 2.5yrs of passionately moving connected Highguard, we were acceptable to uncover it to the world. The aboriginal seemed bright. Everyone I knew who had immoderate transportation to the squad oregon task had the aforesaid [positive] sentiments," helium wrote, adding that "unbiased" interior pre-reveal feedback was "quite positive," and erstwhile it was negative, "it was constructive, and often actionable."

"But past the trailer came out, and it was each downhill from there," Sobel added. "Content creators emotion to constituent retired the bias successful folks who springiness affirmative previews aft being flown retired for an event, but disregard the information that erstwhile their negative-leaning contented gets 10x the engagement of the positive, they’ve got conscionable arsenic overmuch inducement to thin into a disingenuous direction, whether consciously oregon not.

"The hatred started immediately. In summation to dogpiling connected the trailer, I personally came nether occurrence owed to my naïveté connected Twitter, which astir each of my now-former coworkers had learned to debar during their erstwhile crippled launches," helium explained. "After mounting my Twitter relationship to backstage to support my sanity, galore contented creators made videos and posts astir maine and my cowardice, amassing millions of views and inadvertently sending hundreds of aggravated gamers into my replies. They laughed astatine maine for being arrogant of the game, told maine to get retired the McDonald’s applications, and mocked maine for listing having autism successful my bio, which they seemed to deliberation was grounds the crippled would beryllium 'woke trash.' All of this was precise emotionally taxing."

Sobel acknowledged that there's "much constructive criticism" astir Highguard's trailer, marketing, and launch, but besides isn't definite if things would've been immoderate amended had the crippled not been announced astatine The Game Awards.

"We were turned into a gag from infinitesimal one, mostly owed to mendacious assumptions astir a million-dollar advertisement placement, which adjacent salient journalists soon began to authorities arsenic fact," Sobel said. "Within minutes, it was decided: this crippled was dormant connected arrival, and creators present had escaped ragebait contented for a month. Every 1 of our videos connected societal media got downvoted to hell. Comments sections were flooded with copy/paste meme phrases specified arsenic 'Concord 2' and 'Titanfall 3 died for this.' At launch, we received implicit 14k reappraisal bombs from users with little than an hr of playtime. Many didn't adjacent decorativeness the required tutorial.

"In discussions online astir Highguard, [Sony's troubled live-service shooter] Concord, [Riot's precocious launched] 2XKO, and such, it is often pointed retired by gamers that devs similar to blasted gamers for their failures, and that that’s silly. As if gamers person nary power. But they do. A batch of it. I’m not saying our nonaccomplishment is purely the responsibility of gamer civilization and that the crippled would person thrived without the antagonistic discourse, but it perfectly played a role. All products are astatine the whims of the consumers, and the consumers enactment absurd amounts of effort into slandering Highguard. And it worked."

As a effect of this, Sobel said galore of Highguard's hitherto autarkic squad volition "now beryllium forced" to instrumentality to the firm manufacture "many gamers accused Wildlight of being a portion of."

"If this signifier continues, each that volition beryllium near are corporations, astatine slightest successful the multiplayer space. Innovation is connected beingness support," helium added. "Even if Highguard had a rocky launch, our independent, self-published, dev-led workplace afloat of passionate radical conscionable trying to marque a amusive game, with zero AI, and zero firm oversight…deserved amended than this. We deserved the bare minimum of not having our downfall beryllium gleefully manifested."

Sobel finished connected wishing the colleagues that stay astatine Wildlight "the champion of luck," and thanked a slew of "incredibly supportive journalists and creators" for their "empathy, intuition, and integrity."

"Some of the champion times of my beingness were spent with [the techart team]," helium concluded.

A fig of high-profile video crippled developers defended Highguard pursuing the online backlash during the game’s launch. Developers from the likes of Baldur’s Gate 3 workplace Larian, arsenic good arsenic Fortnite shaper Epic, person deed retired astatine the sermon surrounding Highguard, and the internet’s capableness to “hate” connected video games astatine launch. Developers similar Cliff Bleszinski of Gears of War fame, Epic enforcement Mark Rein, and Larian brag Swen Vincke spoke up against, successful particular, negativity from critics.

Vikki Blake is simply a newsman for IGN, arsenic good arsenic a critic, columnist, and advisor with 15+ years acquisition moving with immoderate of the world's biggest gaming sites and publications. She's besides a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her astatine BlueSky.