Highguard Developer Attributes Failure to Gamer Backlash

Josh Sobel, a technical artist and rigger recently impacted by layoffs at Wildlight Entertainment, the studio behind Highguard, took to X to share his thoughts on the game’s launch.

“The day leading up to The Game Awards 2025 was one of the most thrilling of my life,” he shared. “After 2.5 years of pouring my heart into Highguard, we were finally set to unveil it to the world. The outlook was promising.”

He noted that prior to the reveal, internal feedback was overwhelmingly positive, but once the public got a glimpse of the game, “it was all downhill from there.” Sobel mentioned that alongside the backlash on the trailer, he faced significant negativity on X, including content creators criticizing him for making his profile private to shield himself from the onslaught.

In his lengthy post, he expressed frustration with those who “turned [Highguard] into a joke from the very start… Within minutes, it was clear: this game was dead on arrival… At launch, we faced over 14,000 review bombs from users who had played for less than an hour. Many didn’t even complete the tutorial.”

He pointed out that in discussions about Highguard and similar titles, gamers often claim that developers blame them for failures, which he finds misguided. “Gamers have a lot of power,” he stated. “I’m not saying our failure rests solely on gamer culture or that the game would have thrived without the negativity, but it certainly played a part. All products are subject to consumer whims, and the effort put into disparaging Highguard was significant. And it worked.”

Sobel concluded by lamenting that “innovation is on life support” because “every time someone considers leaving the comfort of AAA studios to create a new multiplayer game independently, they’ll think, ‘but remember how gamers didn’t even give Wildlight a chance.’”

Highguard launched at the end of January, initially attracting nearly 100,000 concurrent players on Steam, but the current average player count has dwindled to just 3% of that figure and continues to decline. This situation raises questions about the viability of the free-to-play model, with Highguard serving as a notable example.

In our review of Highguard, we noted that it feels like “wasted potential,” highlighting that while the foundation is solid, it needed more time to refine its issues before being released to the public.