We’d hate to be on Highguard’s development studio, Wildlight Entertainment, as the company has confirmed the departure of “most of the team” that worked in the troubled online game.
The news came first via Alex Gardner, Highguard’s level designer, who talked about it on LinkedIn, as he was one of the departing employees and published the situation while announcing himself as open to work.
Hours later, Wildlight Entertainment itself confirmed the news through social media, stating they were “proud of the team, talent, and the product we’ve created together. We’re also grateful for players who gave the game a shot, and those who continue to be a part of our community.”
What did Highguard do wrong
Highguard has had a bumpy road since its release a couple of weeks ago, and it’s hard to pinpoint one, single wrongdoing. In the beginning, a lot of the criticism aimed at the game felt wrong, and some people even claimed the game was the latest victim of review bombing — when ill-intended gamers purposefully leave negative reviews on several platforms in order to drive a game’s public perception down.
While that’s not necessarily false, soon enough the actual reviews started reverberating the game’s problematic woes: some critics mentioned how most of the game’s elements are just too familiar with other online shooter games out there, while others praised its objective-oriented gameplay even though that was nothing new.
It didn’t help the fact that the game was shadowdropped (essentially, a developer/publisher just releasing a game without fanfare and basically saying “oh, by the way, it’s out” in an attempt to catch the community off guard) and, given its lackluster announcement during last year’s Game Awards ceremony, people were veering more to the “ok, and?” instead of the “oh, snap, that’s cool!” perception.
As of now, the management states that a core team of developers stayed within the company in order to maintain support and bring new content as the game progresses.
Highguard is available for free on PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S.
