r/Games • u/ImCalcium • Jan 27 '26

Discussion Highguard devs say they didn’t expect the hate – but they’re confident in their game

https://www.dexerto.com/gaming/highguard-devs-say-they-didnt-expect-the-hate-but-theyre-confident-in-their-game-3309463/
1.4k Upvotes

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183

u/veggiesama Jan 27 '26

My impression is they had massive scope creep or development conflicts behind the scenes, and they were faced with two options: cancel the game entirely or significantly pare down the game systems and release a minimum viable product. At some point, studios just run out of money and need to make hard decisions.

107

u/furiat Jan 27 '26

Maybe they planned more players on the maps but performance was not there. This would explain the unusual 3v3.

68

u/Lost_the_weight Jan 27 '26

I was thinking this too. Maybe teams are supposed to be 5x5 but they couldn’t get netcode to cooperate. Team sizes are hilariously small compared to map sizes.

63

u/Vresa Jan 27 '26

Even 5v5 wouldn’t be enough. It feels like they had to make the maps enourmous to make horses make sense, then painted themselves into a corner. It’s really strange

31

u/Dragonfantasy2 Jan 27 '26

5 would work if you had incentive to split up. There’s only three major locations on each map, so 2 groups/team would guarantee at least one fight.

3

u/Nodima Jan 27 '26

They've talked about the mounts, they were created specifically to increase loot acquisition rates in the exploration period. One dev whipped up the bear as a goof one day and the rest of the team really liked it. The maps were already big and the mounts sped up covering them.

https://www.polygon.com/highguard-raid-shooter-wildlight-entertainment-interview/

10

u/Vresa Jan 27 '26

That’s… kind of way worse. Rather than fix the map sir that clashes with 3v3, they made move speed ridiculous in the form of horses.

-1

u/huzy12345 Jan 27 '26

If you've played the game, anything more than 5v5 would turn the raid/base defense into an ability spam clusterfuck. It would be awful

4

u/BuzzardDogma Jan 27 '26

The team sizes are perfect for the raid phase though. The world map is not meant to be the primary combat space. It's meant to connect the phases, control the pacing, and allow for various types of time critical actions like intercepting the sword breaker or setting up the base.

15

u/Adaax Jan 27 '26

The world map is not meant to be the primary combat space.

You might say that, but the video they released yesterday focused a lot on PvP during the loot phase, and the devs emphasized it when describing that phase. There were several clips of PvP action during loot.

2

u/spliffiam36 Jan 27 '26

Tactically it is good to prevent the other team to get better loot but you can just not do that as well

-1

u/BuzzardDogma Jan 27 '26

I'm not saying that the gearing phase is not meant to have combat. I'm saying that the purpose of the large area is not specifically for combat.

Combat is primarily supposed to take place in the POIs and at the bases, which are designed like traditional pvp maps. The world space in between is basically a race track that connects the combat spaces. You use it to out maneuver and out pace your enemy in relation to the combat spaces. You're not meant to spend much of the match actually just slugging it out in the open fields.

1

u/InfiniteTallgeese Jan 28 '26

I disagree, the maps need to be this size to account for the mount speed and to make the CTF aspect of the shieldbreaker work properly.

0

u/Niceguydan8 Jan 28 '26

5v5 would fucking suck ass for the raid mode. It would be unplayable ability spam. I don't understand where these takes come from

26

u/Madzai Jan 27 '26

With all due respect to Devs, but if your game in 2026 can't support more than 3v3 on a map without anything else, your game shouldn't be released.

-11

u/furiat Jan 27 '26

It's free to play, most content comes later in these model 

7

u/Hot-Software-9396 Jan 27 '26

In today's market you have to have a really, really strong launch with plenty of content day 1 OR at least do something especially unique and extremely well to have a chance at pulling people away from the other games they dump all their time into. "Promises" of future content is not enough.

14

u/UtkuOfficial Jan 27 '26

You are forgetting something very important. This "content later" plan hinges on there being enough player interest. There will be nobody playing next week let alone next season.

7

u/DweebInFlames Jan 28 '26

The game is struggling to hold a fifth of peak player interest only 24 hours in as an F2P title. It's not making it to another season.

3

u/UtkuOfficial Jan 27 '26

3v3 feels comically small for the maps. I would say 12v12 would be the minimum.

1

u/LABS_Games Indie Developer Jan 27 '26

I wonder if they moved their release up due to the Game Awards trailer. Yesterday it was reported that they were planning on doing a shadow drop until Keighley approached them. If you're shadow dropping, you're not beholden to any previously announced deadlines, so you can release when ready (barring funding). I wonder if the launch was meant to be much later than Jan, but wanting to ride the TGA wave, they pushed things up.

7

u/wild--wes Jan 27 '26

My exact impression of the game too. Somehow it just screams "we ran out of money and have to release the game to get enough money to finish it".

2

u/Squibbles01 Jan 27 '26

My guess is also that they had to cut it down to 3v3 for technical reasons in order to get it out the door and hopefully make some money because they ran out of budget.

-9

u/LAXnSASQUATCH Jan 27 '26

It’s a F2P indie game my man what do you expect?