By Mason Peterson

Did Highgaurd ever have a chance for a successful launch? Many believe it was destined for hate ever since its mega surprise reveal at The Game Awards back in December of last year. Others claim the backlash it’s receiving is justified due to poor performance issues on the PC platform and a soulless master of no art style.

It received nearly 2,000 overwhelmingly negative reviews on Steam only a couple of hours after the game launched and peaked at an average of 90,000 players.

Despite it being a free game, its competitor, Deadlock, a closed invite only exclusive game, averaged the same amount at the same time. At the end of its first day, it was listed on Steam as overwhelmingly negative and was rated 1 star out of 5.

Currently, it is listed as mostly negative but sits directly in the middle at 2.5 stars.

Many of the negative reviews note that the game had many performance issues and problems with players being unable to access the game at all. Players note that the game is poorly optimised and even powerful PCs struggle to run the game well at low settings.

Others have commented that the style of the game is boring and confusing. The mix of fantasy and modern elements, like magical horses and assault rifles, makes the game feel like it is doing too much of everything and achieving nothing.

However, there are others whot feel that the game’s criticisms aren’t fully justified given how quickly it was review bombed.

They ask, is a few hours enough time to judge an overwhelmingly negative consensus? Despite my own grievances with the game, it feels to me that it was always destined to be hated.

We currently live in a cynical gaming culture that demands absolute perfection, with player bases being increasingly more difficult to please. I believe the issue goes deeper than that.

Of all the people who played action shooter games back in the early 2000s and 2010s, most of them regard Titanfall as a pinnacle series. It evolved the genre with an emphasis on movement and verticality and paired the player with a massive bipedal piloted robot for seamless high-paced action.

Ever since Titanfall 2’s launch in 2016, fans have loudly cried out for a third instalment of the well-beloved series.

Instead, the same developers created a title named Apex Legends, a live service shooter that launched in 2019 and still runs to this day. While it contends with mixed but mostly positive reviews, the demand for Titanfall 3 only continued to grow with each year.

The same developers made their own company, named Wildlight and worked hard on releasing Highguard as a free contender in the live service gaming scene instead.

The game was only marketed with a surprise reveal at the end of The Game Awards, amidst fan anticipation for not just Titanfall 3, but other potential sequels and titles.

Even worse, the secret world premiere was teased with the tagline “from members of the team that built Apex Legends and Titanfall.”

Fans wondered if they were finally seeing a third instalment of the beloved action shooter series that was dear to them. What they were met with was a trailer that revealed a game that looked uninspired and stylistically safe. It did little to show off the game’s uniqueness.

Dusty Welch, a Wildlight Entertainment CEO, said: "I think, ultimately, we could have made a different trailer — a better trailer that wasn't about entertaining, which is what we think [The Game Awards] was about.

“We could have made something that did a better job of highlighting the unique loop of the game.

“That's on us. We take that, but the team is resilient."

The team has been silent since the game’s launch as they no doubt work hard to improve on all the criticisms and reviews, deserved or not.

While I believe this game warrants negative reviews, I do not think it deserves the level of backlash it has gotten because it isn’t Titanfall 3. The gaming climate we are in right now is hostile, and fans aren’t realising that review bombing a product in this way doesn’t inspire developers to give them what they want.

Do I like Highguard? The short and simple answer is no. At the same time, I want the developers to succeed and improve. Surely, the fans want the same.

What Went Wrong with Highgaurd's Launch?