Devs defend Highguard amid negative reviews

Many studio devs are defending Highguard The game continues to add negative feedback. First announced at The Game Awards 2025, the hero shooter has faced some notable ups and downs in its short life up to this point. Things seem a little shaky Highguard At the moment, however, it has at least prompted gamers across the industry to tell its studio to give it a second chance.

It's been a wild week for Wildlight Entertainment's first title, and it's only been out for a few days. Within its first few hours, Highguard drew more than 97,000 concurrent players, yet its Steam reviews dropped to “overwhelmingly negative”. Naturally, this drop drew unexpected comparisons to another hero shooter in Sony's misfortune. consentAnd when there is plenty of reason to believe Highguard Not to suffer the same fate, several players suffered eye damage. Now, though, devs who didn't work on the game are coming to its defense.

Highguard Scarlet Hero Defensive Position

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Devs say “it's easy to celebrate this failure” but Highguard deserves better

According to the news highguard's player count dropped by 80% made waves on social media, with devs from other studios criticizing how much people focused on the negative. Remedy Entertainment Communications Director Thomas Puha questioned if media outlets were celebrating HighguardPoor performance and “just making negative headlines for the sake of it.” Baldur's Gate 3 Publishing director Michael Dawes tweeted the statement, adding that “game development runs on optimism,” not strict economics. According to Douse, the celebration of failure makes it difficult for studios to truly understand what players want and can stand in the way of creativity. Perhaps more importantly, cynicism can dampen the enthusiasm of devs, which isn't good for the industry or the games themselves.

Highguard key art fix — Highguard key art resize

Puha and Dawes are far from the first to point out how negativity spreads faster than its opposite, and Highguard It's far from the first game to face such a backlash. However, this is an interesting case and probably attracted the attention of the devs because there is a strong argument that the extent of its criticism may outweigh its actual faults. While most players agree that there is definitely room for improvement, some say so Highguard It does a lot of things better than other hero shooters, but its failings get a lot of attention. Douse offered some optimism, saying devs could still find “hyper-engaged audiences and low-cost opportunities,” which could help studios like Wildlight recover, but the wave of cynicism is still notable.

Douse and Puha's comments echo the sentiment expressed by Lerion CEO Sven Vicke. Around the time of these Highguard The conversation opened, the Baldur's Gate 3 The owner said critics must have a “Metacritic-style” review score before deleting the statement. While he may have walked back that more provocative part of his argument, it came as part of a larger thread about the game being too harsh to draw attention to criticism. There seems to be good support behind these views on social media, but there are plenty of other voices that avoid stepping on toes by saying fans and critics shouldn't accept mediocrity or ignore real problems in sports.

Highguard often starts with negative reviews

For now, the future Highguard Uncertain, but Wildlight Entertainment has been responsive among the response. The game is already receiving updates, and Wildlight has unveiled an ambitious one Highguard Content roadmap for the coming year. There's a chance this effort and attention to fan comments could help the game and the studio behind it bounce back. Requests from other devs to extend Wildlight a little favor might even convince some players to give it another chance down the road. If and how a larger conversation about criticism and negativity can affect anything remains equally unclear, but if nothing else, Highguard Of course the man has spoken.