A developer who labored on Highguard has mentioned the “hate” he acquired after the free-to-play shooter debuted at December’s The Sport Awards, saying the sport, and by extension its group, “become a joke from minute one, largely on account of false assumptions a couple of million-dollar advert placement.”
Simply two weeks after the free-to-play sport’s January 26 launch, yesterday Wildlight let go all however a “core group of builders” regardless of the newly unveiled Episode 2, and regardless of debuting within the high 10 in weekly lively customers on US Steam, and the highest 20 on each US PlayStation and Xbox.
Now, in a candid assertion posted to X/Twitter, tech artist and rigger Josh Sobel — who was a type of let go — talked in regards to the influence of the launch on himself and the wellbeing of your complete group.
“The day resulting in The Sport Awards 2025 was amongst probably the most thrilling of my life. After 2.5yrs of passionately engaged on Highguard, we had been able to reveal it to the world. The longer term appeared vibrant. Everybody I knew who had any connection to the group or mission had the identical [positive] sentiments,” he wrote, including that “unbiased” inner pre-reveal suggestions was “fairly constructive,” and when it was damaging, “it was constructive, and infrequently actionable.”
“However then the trailer got here out, and it was all downhill from there,” Sobel added. “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’ve acquired simply as a lot incentive to lean right into a disingenuous course, whether or not consciously or not.
“The hate began instantly. Along with dogpiling on the trailer, I personally got here below hearth on account of my naïveté on Twitter, which nearly all of my now-former coworkers had realized to keep away from throughout their earlier sport launches,” he defined. “After setting my Twitter account to non-public to guard my sanity, many content material creators made movies and posts about me and my cowardice, amassing thousands and thousands of views and inadvertently sending lots of of indignant avid gamers into my replies. They laughed at me for being happy with the sport, advised me to get out the McDonald’s functions, and mocked me for itemizing having autism in my bio, which they appeared to assume was proof the sport can be ‘woke trash.’ All of this was very emotionally taxing.”
Sobel acknowledged that there is “a lot constructive criticism” about Highguard’s trailer, advertising, and launch, but additionally is not certain if issues would’ve been any higher had the sport not been introduced at The Sport Awards.
“We had been become a joke from minute one, largely on account of false assumptions a couple of million-dollar advert placement, which even distinguished journalists quickly started to state as reality,” Sobel stated. “Inside minutes, it was determined: this sport was lifeless on arrival, and creators now had free ragebait content material for a month. Each certainly one of our movies on social media acquired downvoted to hell. Feedback sections had been flooded with copy/paste meme phrases comparable to ‘Harmony 2’ and ‘Titanfall 3 died for this.’ At launch, we acquired over 14k evaluate bombs from customers with lower than an hour of playtime. Many did not even end the required tutorial.
“In discussions on-line about Highguard, [Sony’s troubled live-service shooter] Harmony, [Riot’s recently launched] 2XKO, and such, it’s typically identified by avid gamers that devs prefer to blame avid gamers for his or her failures, and that that’s foolish. As if avid gamers don’t have any energy. However they do. Plenty of it. I’m not saying our failure is only the fault of gamer tradition and that the sport would have thrived with out the damaging discourse, nevertheless it completely performed a task. All merchandise are on the whims of the shoppers, and the shoppers put absurd quantities of effort into slandering Highguard. And it labored.”
As a consequence of this, Sobel stated lots of Highguard’s hitherto unbiased group will “now be pressured” to return to the company trade “many avid gamers accused Wildlight of being part of.”
“If this sample continues, all that will likely be left are companies, a minimum of within the multiplayer house. Innovation is on life help,” he added. “Even when Highguard had a rocky launch, our unbiased, self-published, dev-led studio stuffed with passionate folks simply making an attempt to make a enjoyable sport, with zero AI, and nil company oversight…deserved higher than this. We deserved the naked minimal of not having our downfall be gleefully manifested.”
Sobel completed on wishing the colleagues that stay at Wildlight “one of the best of luck,” and thanked a slew of “extremely supportive journalists and creators” for his or her “empathy, instinct, and integrity.”
“A few of the finest occasions of my life had been spent with [the techart team],” he concluded.
Quite a few high-profile online game builders defended Highguard following the net backlash through the sport’s launch. Builders from the likes of Baldur’s Gate 3 studio Larian, in addition to Fortnite maker Epic, have hit out on the discourse surrounding Highguard, and the web’s capability to “hate” on video video games at launch. Builders like Cliff Bleszinski of Gears of Struggle fame, Epic government Mark Rein, and Larian boss Swen Vincke spoke up in opposition to, specifically, negativity from critics.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, in addition to a critic, columnist, and advisor with 15+ years expertise working with a number of the world’s greatest gaming websites and publications. She’s additionally a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually Excessive Chaos. Discover her at BlueSky.