A former Highguard developer explains why his shooter failed.

Former Wildlight Entertainment employee and lead designer High guard It was assumed that the culprit failed because he leaned too heavily into the competitive scene. Alex Garner, who previously worked on massive AAA shooters such as Apex Legends and Battlefield 6Wildlight says it's attempting to build a new, ambitious game that: High guardHowever, the studio ultimately decided to go all-in on a dedicated 3v3 mode, which ultimately required a ton of communication between team members and is likely why the number of players in the game suddenly dropped significantly.

High guard It was part of last year's larger Game Awards event, which also featured reveals of new games. theology game, forest 3, Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic, Tomb Raider: CatalystAnd many more. Despite an event filled with big reveals, the last coveted spot of the night was High guardRumor has it that Wildlight doesn't even have to pay for the position. Although it hasn't been confirmed, host Geoff Keighley reportedly liked the game so much in early previews that he insisted on showing up to the event despite Wildlight's plans to shadowdrop the game earlier this year. Sadly, the reveal is set. High guard Before the shooting was even made public, thousands took to social media to blast the gunman.

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Important Things High Guards Don't Underestimate or Tell You

Although Highguard's gameplay loop is fairly simple, the game has a few mechanics and tricks that are either understated or underemphasized.

Highguard Dev says it leans too heavily into the competitive scene.

Wildlight had little to no marketing. High guard Weeks after the incident, all the chatter continued online and resulted in the shooting. At launch on Steam, it had nearly 100,000 concurrent players. Unfortunately, these numbers declined rapidly, which led Wildlight to immediately lay off most of its employees. Now, in a new interview with the Quad Damage Podcast (written by PCGamesN), former lead designer Alex Garner has given his thoughts on why. High guard It failed with too much focus on the competitive scene being the key reason. “I can only tell you my position as a level designer, when I came on board [Wildlight]We were trying to figure out these new, ambitious games, and this team is always pushing the envelope,” Garner said.

The developer goes on to explain how development “leaned towards the competitive side.” He said this was always one of his “biggest fears” as a player. According to Garner, High guard's core mode continued to evolve during development, but when Wildlight decided to focus solely on the 3v3 aspect of the game, the team ended up leaning “too much into the competitive scene.”

“3v3 duos have always been the most sweaty version – battle royale, objective mode, wingman – it requires a high intensity of communication and team play, so it doesn't leave much room for casualness. I think that's the biggest reason why many players have turned away from Highguard,” explained the former Wildlight developer.

As Garner notes, 3v3 requires a ton of communication and teamwork, making playing solo a somewhat unpleasant experience. This was one of the most common complaints raised by players when the shooting game was released. However, to Wildlight's credit, they immediately added a new 5v5 mode. High guard The game was released not long ago. Unfortunately, despite the studio's best efforts to continue supporting the shooter, even after most of its developers were fired. High guardThe number continued to decline.

It's been a little over a month since it was released. High guard The game has already reached its lowest point on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. At least on Steam. There's no way to know how many people are jumping into consoles every day, but High guard It's currently struggling to hit more than 400 concurrent players each day, and at the time of writing, the platform's overall review score is “mixed.” Wildlight promised continued support, but High guard With the core group of developers continuing to release new content updates on a regular basis following mass layoffs, it's unclear how long the title can realistically sustain itself with such a small player base.