Fired Highguard Dev: “We Were a Joke From Minute One”
▼ Summary
– Highguard’s launch was preceded by a highly negative reaction to its debut trailer at The Game Awards, which a former developer says turned the game into a “joke” based on false assumptions.
– Despite a large initial player influx, the game faced criticism post-launch regarding elements like map size and its 3v3 format, prompting the studio to release patches and make a 5v5 mode permanent.
– The developer, Josh Sobel, stated that internal feedback before the reveal was positive, but immediate, highly-engaged negative discourse from content creators and players created a damaging perception.
– Sobel argues that while not solely to blame, intense consumer backlash, including review bombing and meme-driven slander, played a significant role in the game’s troubled reception and the subsequent developer layoffs.
– Although Highguard continues with a core development team, its journey exemplifies the impact of pre-launch perception and online discourse on a game’s fate, despite post-launch support from other industry developers.
The rocky launch and subsequent developer layoffs for the multiplayer game Highguard offer a sobering case study in modern game reception. Following its high-profile reveal at a major awards show, the title faced an immediate and overwhelming wave of negative online sentiment that its former lead technical artist argues crippled its chances from the very beginning.
According to Josh Sobel, a former Wildlight developer, the team’s internal morale was high prior to the game’s unveiling. Playtests generated positive and constructive feedback, leading the independent, self-published studio to believe they had a potential hit that could provide financial stability. This optimism evaporated almost the moment the debut trailer aired. Sobel contends that content creators, driven by the higher engagement negative content attracts, immediately labeled the game a failure. He points to assumptions about an expensive marketing deal as a catalyst for this perception, which was then repeated as fact.
The backlash was intensely personal. Sobel locked his social media profile after the trailer’s release, only to face ridicule and accusations of cowardice. He describes the experience as emotionally draining. The negativity translated directly to the game’s platforms, where every promotional video was heavily downvoted and comment sections flooded with dismissive memes. Upon launch, the game was hit with over fourteen thousand negative reviews from users who had played for less than an hour, with many not completing the tutorial.
Sobel is careful to clarify that he isn’t blaming players for the game’s entire failure. He acknowledges that all products are subject to consumer opinion. However, he argues that an unprecedented effort to slander the game online created a predetermined narrative of failure that it could never escape. “We were turned into a joke from minute one,” he wrote, noting that this discourse provided easy “ragebait” content for a full month, drowning out any chance for a fair assessment.
Despite a post-launch effort to address player complaints with content updates and making a 5v5 mode permanent, the damage appeared done. The recent layoffs at Wildlight followed just weeks after Highguard transitioned to a free-to-play model. A core team remains on the project, but its future is uncertain.
The situation prompted supportive messages from other studios, echoing the sentiment that no game launches perfectly. For Sobel, while the journey ended in a painful and abrupt closure, he expresses no regret for the work. His account highlights the powerful, and sometimes destructive, role of instant online judgment in an industry where first impressions are increasingly permanent.
(Source: EuroGamer)
