Discussion around the game has not died down since its announcement at The Game Awards in December. After rumors that host Geoff Keighley was the reason the game was placed last, it turned out that this was indeed the case - the PvP raid shooter had originally been planned for a surprise release.
Wildlight Entertainment head Dusty Welch admitted to Bloomberg:
We handled our trailer poorly. We admit that.
But was showing the game at TGA the right idea?
That is a very fair question, and I ask it to myself constantly. I will keep asking myself for quite some time. Even if the game becomes successful, I will still be thinking about how we communicate with players and the press. Was this the right path? Could it have been done differently? And I still do not know the answer.
Toxicity is complicated, and it is debatable whether we would have gotten more, less, or the same reaction by showing the game at TGA. I do not know, and we will never know. But this is an aspect that everyone in game development needs to take into account.
At launch, Highguard drew 97,249 players on Steam, but then the number fell below 15,000. The game received \"Mostly Negative\" reviews because of performance issues, server queues, and bugs. The rating has now risen to \"Mixed\" — only 42% of reviewers recommend the project.
Wildlight has already announced a year-long content plan and over the weekend released an experimental 5v5 mode that may become permanent.
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