A developer who labored on Highguard has mentioned the “hate” he acquired after the free-to-play shooter debuted at December’s The Recreation Awards, saying the sport, and by extension its workforce, “become a joke from minute one, largely as a result of false assumptions about a 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 energetic customers on US Steam, and the highest 20 on each US PlayStation and Xbox.
Now, in a candid statement posted to X/Twitter, tech artist and rigger Josh Sobel — who was a type of let go — talked concerning the affect of the launch on himself and the wellbeing of all the workforce.
“The day resulting in The Recreation Awards 2025 was amongst probably the most thrilling of my life. After 2.5yrs of passionately working on Highguard, we have been able to reveal it to the world. The long run appeared brilliant. Everybody I knew who had any connection to the workforce or undertaking had the identical [positive] sentiments,” he wrote, including that “unbiased” inner pre-reveal suggestions was “fairly constructive,” and when it was detrimental, “it was constructive, and usually 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 people 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 into a disingenuous course, whether or not consciously or not.
“The hate began instantly. Along with dogpiling on the trailer, I personally got here beneath hearth as a result 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 tens of millions of views and inadvertently sending a whole lot of indignant avid gamers into my replies. They laughed at me for being happy with the sport, informed me to get out the McDonald’s functions, and mocked me for itemizing having autism in my bio, which they appeared to suppose 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 positive if issues would’ve been any higher had the sport not been introduced at The Recreation Awards.
“We have been become a joke from minute one, largely as a result of false assumptions about a million-dollar advert placement, which even distinguished journalists quickly started to state as reality,” Sobel mentioned. “Inside minutes, it was determined: this sport was lifeless on arrival, and creators now had free ragebait content material for a month. Each one among our movies on social media acquired downvoted to hell. Feedback sections have been flooded with copy/paste meme phrases equivalent to ‘Harmony 2’ and ‘Titanfall 3 died for this.’ At launch, we acquired over 14k assessment 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 usually 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. Numerous it. I’m not saying our failure is only the fault of gamer tradition and that the sport would have thrived with out the detrimental discourse, nevertheless it completely performed a function. 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 mentioned lots of Highguard’s hitherto impartial workforce will “now be compelled” to return to the company trade “many avid gamers accused Wildlight of being a a part of.”
“If this sample continues, all that will probably be left are companies, no less than within the multiplayer area. Innovation is on life help,” he added. “Even when Highguard had a rocky launch, our impartial, self-published, dev-led studio stuffed with passionate folks simply attempting to make a enjoyable sport, with zero AI, and zero 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 “the very best of luck,” and thanked a slew of “extremely supportive journalists and creators” for his or her “empathy, instinct, and integrity.”
“A number of the greatest occasions of my life have been spent with [the techart team],” he concluded.
Quite a lot of high-profile online game builders defended Highguard following the web 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 Battle fame, Epic govt Mark Rein, and Larian boss Swen Vincke spoke up towards, specifically, negativity from critics.
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, in addition to a critic, columnist, and guide with 15+ years expertise working with a few of the world’s largest gaming websites and publications. She’s additionally a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually Excessive Chaos. Discover her at BlueSky.
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