During the grand finale of the Game Awards, which was fairly par for the course as far as the Oscars/E3 Hybrid goes with reveals, a game from the ‘creators of Apex Legends and Titanfall’ (An appellation I am hesitant to accept at face value) called “Highguard” was revealed; This game’s reveal was met with extreme apprehension at best and blind hatred at worst, and I can’t say it’s unjustified — The rest of the Game Awards, while nothing insane was revealed, generally seemed to be ushering in a new phase of game releases, with more unique titles like the new Divinity and Total War: Warhammer 40,000, but the new reveal seemed to walk us back on that, as it ended up being a… hero shooter.
For context, the Hero Shooter, a genre of multiplayer PVP titles in which the players are presented with a set of characters with unique abilities, has been done to absolute death, with the mainstream popularization of the concept largely coming from Overwatch, though that was hardly the beginning, as games such as Team Fortress 2 (and it’s prior Quake Mod origin Team Fortress) helped pioneer the concept. Hero shooters are still popular today, with games such as Marvel Rivals, but they have presented some of gaming’s most infamous failures, namely,
Concord.
Concord is easily the most famous example of the hero shooter genre falling flat. Ignoring the boring gunplay, ugly characters and bootleg Guardians of the Galaxy ‘Charm’, Concord’s peak player count was a meager 697, and the game was pulled from shelves and online game stores after only two weeks of being released. Concord is easily the biggest stinker out of the hero shooter genre, and has in the eyes of many permanently soured the concept.
The vitriol to Highguard ultimately began to roll because of it’s unfortunate very high resemblance to Concord, and caused many players to say that the game is imminent for the exact same fate. as for what I think?
I think Highguard just looks boring. I don’t really think it’s going to be as terrible as many expect, and I really don’t think it will repeat what happened with Concord, but I do think it’s probably not going to be a smash hit like Geoff Keighley suggested it would be.
In the outbreak of this, though, the developers of Highguard have been completely silent since the end of the Game Awards, with no updates and the listing on steam remaining unchanged, this has caused some to fear that the game is going to be canned entirely before it even comes out. I hope not, but the internet hatred, I fear, is not entirely localized or a quiet minority this time.
I know that when it comes out, i’ll give it a try, as I’m always hoping to eat my words when it comes to negative articles like this. I’m someone who enjoys games even when they aren’t “good”, I’m not a Gamer, so much as I am a game enjoyer, and that includes ones that aren’t top quality.
Speaking of, keep your eyes peeled for my Review of Metroid Prime 4: Beyond — I’ve not begun playing it yet, but stay tuned! I’ve heard some pretty worrying things about that game, but as a just about lifelong Metroid Fan, I’m going to give it a chance, just the same as I will give Highguard a chance, that is, if the devs give it one. Only time will tell.