A former High Guard level designer suggests that the 3v3 mode was the game's downfall.

Despite officially launching a month ago, Highguard's release and subsequent failure continues to be one of the biggest stories in gaming. There's interest in just about everything, from the funding source, now revealed to be Tencent, to the live service title's floundering player numbers.

Now, in a new podcast appearance, Alex Graner, former developer and lead designer at Wildlight Entertainment, has opened up about some of the elements of the title that he believes led to its almost immediate downfall.

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Highguard failed because it attempted to provide an experience that already existed.

Wildlight Entertainment has announced that it has laid off the majority of Highguard's developers.

In particular, Graner points out that the game's 3v3 focus is one of the biggest reasons why things ultimately didn't work out.

Was Highguard too competitive for his own good?

As first discovered and written about by PCGamesN, Graner claimed that Highguard ultimately “leaned too far into the competitive scene.” A decision consistent with a 3v3 focus.

“3v3 duos are always the sweatiest versions of anything – battle royale, objective mode, wingman, you name it,” Graner said. “It requires a high level of communication and team play with the team, so it doesn’t leave much room for casualness. I think that’s the biggest factor that’s driven a lot of players away from Highguard.”

It also didn't help that the game was full of “a lot of different rules and steps,” Graner added. This created an experience that was too much to grasp initially.

“Plus, because it was a 3v3 game, that kind of game only requires high skill movement and shooting, which is already pretty high. [bar to] “So if we have a few bad games or our guys don’t stick together, we’re just going to roll and it’s going to be very difficult to get one-on-two in our games,” Graner explained. They are all designed to be team-based shooting games. I think that was the biggest thing. “People just turned it off because they didn’t have a team.”

These critiques were something early adopters were quick to offer, and Wildlight created a 5v5 mode that launched as a “limited time” event before being added permanently to the game.

Most recently, Widlight added Raid Rush, a completely different mode that helps streamline a game that desperately needs control by removing the looting phase entirely. It's also 5v5.

Unfortunately, it may be a case of too little, too late, as the game has less than 400 players at the time of writing, as per SteamDB, and has had less than 600 players on Steam in the last 24 hours. It's unclear whether these additions would have improved the game's odds at launch, but they certainly couldn't have hurt anything.