Jason Schreier Releases Investigative Report on the Causes of Highguard's Failure
Cover: Highguard screenshot
An investigative report by Jason Schreier has appeared on Bloomberg, dedicated to the development of Highguard and the subsequent failure of the shooter.
Key points:
- As is known, the studio Wildlight was founded by former Respawn employees. There were several reasons to go independent. The first was the desire to be independent. And the second was that EA took the lion's share of the profits brought in by Apex Legends, which also didn't add to the desire to work there.
- After receiving funding from Tencent, the newly formed team began brainstorming the concept for their future game. Initially, they planned to create a shooter with survival elements. After about two years, it became clear that different genres didn't mesh well in a competitive action game. Moreover, it was becoming too large in scope. As a result, the game was significantly simplified and reduced to a competitive 3v3 shooter.
- The plan was to make Highguard a live-service project and gradually expand it into something bigger. Specifically, the addition of a single-player campaign was planned.
- The first closed tests were a huge success. But there's a catch — the developers were in direct communication with the participants. And when the game was given to regular users to try — it became clear that the mechanics were too complex to grasp.
- Management at Wildlight categorically refused to conduct public tests. The reason for this was Apex Legends, which was released on the day of its announcement and became a huge hit. With Highguard, alas, that approach no longer worked. In fact, according to most employees, this was the main reason for the fiasco.
- Overall, the team really enjoyed working on the game. The atmosphere in the studio was wonderful — except for the last two months of agonizing wait for the release.
- Tencent ceased funding shortly after the release, which led to layoffs. Currently, less than a dozen developers are working on the shooter, although initially there were about a hundred.
Despite the cuts, Highguard periodically receives updates, although audience interest in the game is near zero. And in recent weeks, the peak concurrent player count on Steam has barely reached a little over a thousand.