Highguard - A new sci-fi / fantasy PVP shooter from Titanfall and Apex developers

ByWatterson said:
The character designs are Gen-Z trash and this is an objective take.

Absolutely awful. Like truly heinous. What is this shit?

Highguard-The-Game-Awards-2025-announcement-trailer-large.png
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I've already lost track of which game is which, seeing this same dude with that same haircut in all of them, sometimes there's a female version of him too.
 
LegendOfKage said:
For you and anyone else looking to make "it's going to fail" posts, not that I blame you for doing so, but what do you want in a modern competitive PVP shooter?

COD clone done right? A new Halo type game? Unreal Tournament type arena shooter? Another Overwatch? A new Planetscape game? What should developers be doing with modern shooters?

People always talk about what they don't want from every newly announced PVP shooter, but people rarely explain what they do want from the genre.
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I'd much rather they make a spiritual successor to Titanfall II, man I loved everything about that game, both the PvE campaign and the PvP modes. I know they can't actually make Titanfall III because EA owns it, but just make it anyway and call it something else!


Highguard just looks like an Overwatch clone with a worse artstyle to me. It even looks like it plays like Overwatch. Even the name is like a clone of Overwatch:

High = Over synonym
Guard = Watch synonym

I hope the game does well but it doesn't appeal to me at all, it honestly feels like a Concord 2 situation to me unfortunately. I hope it isn't though, for the devs sake.

What I really can't understand is why it got the final big reveal of the night? Star Wars FOTOR would have been a much, MUCH better choice for that IMHO.
 
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My only hope is this game's failure will be another sign to the industry to stop trend-chasing GaaS so hard.

Too many already exist, the business model to maintain itself needs people constantly playing, which means less games being played overall.

Also, high fantasy with modern guns as an aesthetic 90% of the time looks ass, and so does this.
 
I thought the "riding a fantasy bear with an assault rifle in hand" thing was actually hilarious. I feel like that idea could be cool in a class based shooter, and wall destruction is cool. That said the Fortnite character design and "yet another hero shooter" game is so disappointing. Aggressively off-putting in fact. Very mixed impression, because the maps and action look great.
 
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New question, for anyone who would like to consider the situation.


You're the community manager or head of publicity for this game. You were hoping "one last thing" would bring lots of attention to your game, but it resulted in people being highly critical of your game instead. You're a little under two months from launch. Your desire to surprise people with the announcement resulted in no influencers having tried your game before the announcement, so there's absolutely no one out there to say "no, I've played it, and it really is fun." Your vague trailer only hinted at some aspects of the game that are unique, and you've left people with more questions than answers. The vast majority of conversation surrounding your game seems to be negative.

What's your next step? What should the developer do here in order to give this game the best chance it can have of succeeding?
 
LegendOfKage said:

New question, for anyone who would like to consider the situation.


You're the community manager or head of publicity for this game. You were hoping "one last thing" would bring lots of attention to your game, but it resulted in people being highly critical of your game instead. You're a little under two months from launch. Your desire to surprise people with the announcement resulted in no influencers having tried your game before the announcement, so there's absolutely no one out there to say "no, I've played it, and it really is fun." Your vague trailer only hinted at some aspects of the game that are unique, and you've left people with more questions than answers. The vast majority of conversation surrounding your game seems to be negative.

What's your next step? What should the developer do here in order to give this game the best chance it can have of succeeding?
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At a minimum, they should be sending out a proper press kit to media outlets and publishing blog posts on official channels - Playstation, Steam, Xbox, etc. The official website also needs attention, because in its current state its completely barebones. A deep dive gameplay trailer would go a long way as well.

Aside from that, it would make sense to lift the preview embargo, assuming people have already had hands-on time through playtests. A closed beta that allows streamers and content creators to freely share footage would help a lot. At least then everyone would have a clear sense of what the game actually is, and whether its any good.
 
There seem to be some cool ideas with the bigger maps, mounts and the bases. But the art direction is awful and I think the trailer did a poor job at selling the game.
You got both Geoff and the trailer itself talking about "pushing the FPS genre forward", then you show a trailer that's mostly generic hero shooter characters doing hero shooter stuff.


LegendOfKage said:
For you and anyone else looking to make "it's going to fail" posts, not that I blame you for doing so, but what do you want in a modern competitive PVP shooter?

COD clone done right? A new Halo type game? Unreal Tournament type arena shooter? Another Overwatch? A new Planetscape game? What should developers be doing with modern shooters?

People always talk about what they don't want from every newly announced PVP shooter, but people rarely explain what they do want from the genre.
Click to expand...

Personally I'd love a new game like Titanfall 2. I really enjoyed the mix of the fast paced high mobility combat on foot with the slower but more destructive mechs.
I'd also like to see some new arena shooter in the style of Halo, like proper classical one without loadouts and with a slower pace.
Both with a more grounded and "cool" looking aesthetic instead of wacky zoomer bait characters like this game.

Of course people will point out that these games would fail too since no one wants arena shooters, Titanfall 2 bombed and Halo Infinite dropped off quickly. All of which is true and I agree with. But then again, it's not like recent Hero shooters have doing any better.
 
Absolute waste of a "one last thing" kinda slot.
Divinity or even RE 9 would have been a better choice. Tbh I genuinely thought there'd be a FF7 part 3 trailer or something. Not that hot garbage no one cares about.
 
Fbh said:
You got both Geoff and the trailer itself talking about "pushing the FPS genre forward", then you show a trailer that's mostly generic hero shooter characters doing hero shooter stuff.
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This is the crux of the negative feedback and it seems really misguided.

Replace Highguard with Deadlock. You'd get 100% the same complaints, but Deadlock is primed to be a big success.

Highguard is clearly doing something unique. They're calling it a "raid shooter". There's a level of choice and tactics here that games like Concord didn't have. Whether that innovation is enough to draw players remains to be seen but we obviously didn't get enough information in this short trailer.

I'm not anticipating Highgaurd to be a success, but clearly we have to see the game before we can judge it. What's happening here is widespread prosopagnosia amongst online single player types who have the inability to understand why people like playing games such as League of Legends or Valorant.

We must learn to self reflect more. And by "we" I mean y'all.
 
Hudo said:
It is astonishing that EA has no problems shitting out mediocre Battlefield games. But God beware if anyone wants a Titanfall 3.
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Battlefield 6 is almost exactly what every Battlefield fan wanted.
Battlefield 2042 we dont talk about.
Battlefield V was actually a good game, still has the best gunplay and movement systems of any Battlefield game.
Battlefield 1 was legit a top tier game and I wish they would patch crossplay in so the servers fill up.
Battlefield 4 wasnt enough of a levelution of Battlefield 3 but still was a good game.
Battlefield 3 was what made a lot of new Battlefield fans who were tired of the usual sweat room shooters.

I dont get why people are so harsh on Battlefield.




P.S This game isnt being developed or published by EA its Wildlight Entertainment which is a team of Ex-Respawn devs.

P.P.S Why no TitanFall 3......blame us gamers......we let TitanFall and TitanFall 2 bomb at launch even if they were great games.......we sent a message to EA that we didnt want TitanFall......can you blame them for not making TitanFall 3 ASAP?
They released Apex Legends which is basically TitanFall BattleRoyale and gamers ate it up.
They literally dumbed down the MP of TitanFall 2 to make it more accessible.......they gave us a great campaign......we still didnt buy it.....shame on us.


<----Bought both TitanFall games at launch.
<----Doesnt play Apex Legends.....I will NOT be one of those numbers, in hopes that one player that doesnt is enough to get Respawn/EA to make TitanFall 3.
 
I dont like that at all. I mean, it's ok to laugh at the game or criticize it here, but taking it up to the devs on social media is just wrong, if they didn't attack the community first. It's a nasty behavior. Let the market decide their fate.
 
I didn't even watch TGAs, just caught up on trailers,

then I saw everyone was mad at the final game.

Even with that pre-emptive knowledge going into the trailer it still some how looks even worse than i imagined, this is some hot shit garbage for sure.
 
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Unknown Soldier said:


Damn that Blizzard LMAO
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I'm going to guess right now that this isn't going to play like Overwatch. I don't think it's going to have push the payload objectives or just simple point capture objectives. I think it's going to do something somewhat new and different, although I don't really know if that will be enough for it to find success. It looks like players might be able to transform into slower and larger but more powerful forms, likely only once certain objectives have been met. I guess we'll have to see when they announce more about the game.
 
LegendOfKage said:
I'm going to guess right now that this isn't going to play like Overwatch. I don't think it's going to have push the payload objectives or just simple point capture objectives. I think it's going to do something somewhat new and different, although I don't really know if that will be enough for it to find success. It looks like players might be able to transform into slower and larger but more powerful forms, likely only once certain objectives have been met. I guess we'll have to see when they announce more about the game.
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I think he was just making the point that Overwatch was the first in the new genre and triggered a massive industry rush to make hero shooters, much like Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM back in the day, or Diablo, or Command & Conquer, or Quake and Unreal Tournament, or good old WoW as other examples. It's not just traditional console games that are like this, the moment Genshin Impact came out for phones, the entire mobile gaming industry turned itself around and set about making every game look like Genshin and copy its gameplay mechanics
 
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I think it looks really good actually. Looks like they're combining elements from many different games into one. I don't get the hate on this one.
 
LegendOfKage said:
For you and anyone else looking to make "it's going to fail" posts, not that I blame you for doing so, but what do you want in a modern competitive PVP shooter?

COD clone done right? A new Halo type game? Unreal Tournament type arena shooter? Another Overwatch? A new Planetscape game? What should developers be doing with modern shooters?

People always talk about what they don't want from every newly announced PVP shooter, but people rarely explain what they do want from the genre.
Click to expand...
We don't want a PVP shooter because the market is flooded with them and they always have the exact same problems.

-Cater to retards with press X button for kills mechanics.
-Characters that either look like they/them rejects or diluted down to be as inoffensive as possible.
-Do nothing better than the existing games that everyone plays.
 
Pantz said:
I think it looks really good actually. Looks like they're combining elements from many different games into one. I don't get the hate on this one.
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I think people really need to see more of the game before it can be fairly judged one way or another. That reveal trailer was just too limited.

But I do understand where the hate is coming from. Backlash that it was the last trailer of the Game Awards, single player only fans, people who have decided they're done with hero shooters, Titanfall fans who already resent Apex and just want a sequel to Titanfall, people who want multiplayer games or live service games to fail in general, people who hate free to play games, people who dislike the art direction, and the list goes on.

For all sorts of reasons, there's a lot of different groups of people who would dislike this game. I think the real issue is the group most likely to praise it would have been competitive multiplayer you tube content creators, and they were never allowed to see it or try it before the announcement.
 
LegendOfKage said:
I think people really need to see more of the game before it can be fairly judged one way or another. That reveal trailer was just too limited.
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Possibly. Based on the one reveal trailer I think Highguard looks like a generic Overwatch clone, and my gut feeling is the nickname "Concord 2" is fitting.

Now, that said, I will admit its possible its just a bad trailer. Maybe the game is much better than the trailer implies.

Seeing how its F2P it will be easy for everyone to try it out and see for themselves, and that's a good thing.
 
Fantasy setting with guns. It could be done right but this doesn't feel like it got it. Just looks out of place and all of the movements including the snapping to targets just makes all of this feel very janky.
 
Ultimately, the game just needs to be good. If it come sour and has an 88 Metacritic, streamers playing it saying it's awesome, lots of people checking it out because it's F2P, then it'll do just fine.

That being said, I have my doubts…
 
I see a lot of people saying that picking that trailer as a final reveal was a bad decision. But it probably wasn't picked, they paid for that final premium slot. What a waste of money.
 
LegendOfKage said:
I think people really need to see more of the game before it can be fairly judged one way or another. That reveal trailer was just too limited.

But I do understand where the hate is coming from. Backlash that it was the last trailer of the Game Awards, single player only fans, people who have decided they're done with hero shooters, Titanfall fans who already resent Apex and just want a sequel to Titanfall, people who want multiplayer games or live service games to fail in general, people who hate free to play games, people who dislike the art direction, and the list goes on.

For all sorts of reasons, there's a lot of different groups of people who would dislike this game. I think the real issue is the group most likely to praise it would have been competitive multiplayer you tube content creators, and they were never allowed to see it or try it before the announcement.
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Trailers is supposed to build up hype and make people interested. Thats the entire point of a trailer and is not limited to just games, includes the cinematographic space. And I see what you mean there, but if the creators of this game are so adamant to show this it means they are confident people will like/look foward to this.

But the trailer itself fails at that since it has too many red flags, lacks appeal, ugly art direction, looks generic, creators track record, etc. If this is supposed to make look after to see more, they fail miserably.
 
People are losing their shit primarily because this was the "one last thing" reveal. If it showed up earlier or in the middle, it would have been much better received for sure. Not saying it would have been received 100% positively, but definitely better.

The game is going to be free and it's out next month. I'll try it. You've got nothing to lose and who knows, it might be a surprise.

There are a couple multiplayer games that people immediately saw or heard of and thought they were going to immediately flop. Two recent ones that come to mind are Marvel Rivals and Arc Raiders. Both those games became VERY successful. I still remember the first reactions to Marvel Rivals...so many people saying shit like: "great, another hero shooter...who asked for this?". Same with Arc Raiders...people immediately saying it was going to fail as soon as it went from PvE only to a PvPvE Extraction Shooter.

Both those games are very fun in their own ways and offered a good amount of content to experience right out of launch. This is where Highguard needs to not miss. It needs to be fun right out the door with a good amount of content to experience.
 
I just went through and saw the comments by the developer.

If you're locking comments because you don't like criticism, your game is already doomed.

As someone said, locking yourself in a toxic positivity chamber NEVER ends well at all.

The game is dead. The bigger names like Fortnite, Overwatch, Helldivers 2(PvE but still GAAS with success), etc. Will most likely launch content around your release and bury you.
 
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