Josh Sobel, who was previously a tech artist and rigger on live-service shooter Highguard, posted a prolonged, eye-opening weblog about his time engaged on the free-to-play FPS that has struggled since launching final month on consoles and PC. Sobel additionally talks in regards to the response it obtained after its reveal and the harassment he suffered.
On February 12 Sobel, a former Wildlight Leisure developer who labored on Highguard for 2 and a half years, shared a submit on Twitter containing ideas he says he has been eager to share “for some time.” Within the submit, titled “Reflecting On Transport My First Recreation,” Sobel reveals that the day main as much as Highguard‘s large reveal on the 2025 Recreation Awards was “amongst probably the most thrilling” in his life. “The long run appeared brilliant,” added the developer. Nonetheless, shortly after its reveal in December, it turned clear that wasn’t the case.
“Then the trailer got here out, and it was all downhill from there,” stated Sobel.
“The hate began instantly. Along with dogpiling on the trailer, I personally got here beneath fireplace on account of my naïveté on Twitter, which just about all of my now-former coworkers had discovered to keep away from throughout their earlier sport launches. After setting my Twitter account to non-public to guard my sanity, many content material creators made movies and posts about me and my cowardice, amassing hundreds of thousands of views and inadvertently sending tons of of offended avid gamers into my replies. They laughed at me for being happy with the sport, instructed me to get out the McDonald’s purposes, and mocked me for itemizing having autism in my bio, which they appeared to suppose was proof the sport could be ‘woke trash.’ All of this was very emotionally taxing.”
Sobel admits that there’s loads of “constructive criticism” about how the sport was marketed, however stated he didn’t really feel prefer it was his place to touch upon that and said that there isn’t a solution to know if the launch would have been higher or worse with out the Recreation Awards reveal. Regardless, after the trailer landed, Sobel says the sport “was a joke from minute one” and blames “false assumptions” about how a lot the trailer’s spot value the studio. It was later revealed that Wildlight didn’t pay something; Recreation Awards founder Geoff Keighley simply appreciated the sport sufficient to incorporate it.
“Inside minutes, it was determined: this sport was useless on arrival, and creators now had free ragebait content material for a month. Each one in all our movies on social media obtained downvoted to hell. Feedback sections have been flooded with copy/paste meme phrases resembling ‘Harmony 2‘ and ‘Titanfall 3 died for this.’ At launch, we obtained over 14k overview bombs from customers with lower than an hour of playtime. Many didn’t even end the required tutorial.”
The previous Highguard dev didn’t totally blame avid gamers for the shooter’s failure, however did recommend that avid gamers have a “lot” of energy over what video games succeed and fail.
“I’m not saying our failure is only the fault of gamer tradition and that the sport would have thrived with out the detrimental discourse, nevertheless it completely performed a job. All merchandise are on the whims of the customers, and the customers put absurd quantities of effort into slandering Highguard. And it labored.” Wildlight not too long ago introduced large layoffs.
“A lot of Wildlight’s former devs will now be compelled to assimilate again into the precise company business many avid gamers accused Wildlight of being part of. Now, each time somebody thinks about leaving the golden handcuffs behind in favor of constructing a brand new multiplayer sport the indie manner, they’ll say, ‘However keep in mind how avid gamers didn’t even give Wildlight an opportunity.’ Quickly, if this sample continues, all that can be left are firms, at the least within the multiplayer house. Innovation is on life help.”
Sobel wrapped up his submit by wishing the remaining devs on the studio good luck on Highguard, and saying he believes it might probably nonetheless succeed. He additionally made it clear that he doesn’t imagine the sport deserved what it obtained.
“Even when Highguard had a rocky launch, our impartial, self-published, dev-led studio stuffed with passionate individuals simply making an attempt to make a enjoyable sport, with zero AI, and 0 company oversight, deserved higher than this,” stated Sobel. “We deserved the naked minimal of not having our downfall be gleefully manifested.”
