What Went Wrong With Highguard? New Report Says "Hubris" Partly To Blame

A new report sheds more light on the situation surrounding the free-to-play shooter Highguard, which launched to big numbers but quickly cratered, with developer Widlight laying off staff and leaving people to wonder if the studio would eventually pull the plug entirely on the game. The biggest takeaway from the report is that former staff said "hubris" was to blame, in part, for the game's downfall.Bloomberg reported that Highguard was tested "extensively" with internal and external players, and the feedback was reported to have been "mostly positive." However, there were some road bumps, too, including a general sense that it was a "complicated game to learn" and was more fun with voice chat enabled. People inside Wildlight reportedly asked management if the team could open the game up to an audience of public testers, similar to how Arc Raiders and Battlefield 6 handled pre-release community testing, but Wildlight management reportedly "nixed" those plans.The idea from the top, the report claimed, was that the studio wanted to shadowdrop Highguard like Apex Legends, a game that many of the staff on Highguard also worked on. That was reported to have been the plan until The Game Awards host and organizer Geoff Keighley played an early version of the game and agreed to give Wildlight a prime spot at The Game Awards for $0.Continue Reading at GameSpot