The new free-to-play PvP FPS Highguard has been the talk of social media for several weeks now, ahead of its launch today, but for all the wrong reasons.
After appearing at The Game Awards as the show’s “one last thing” before the final award, the cinematic trailer displayed by Wildlight Entertainment for its debut title was not quite a hit with players, to put it lightly. And so at an early access hands-on event last week in Los Angeles, I asked the studio’s top brass about how it all went down.
Wildlight’s CEO and co-founder Dusty Welch explained to me that Highguard was originally meant to be a shadow-dropped title, similar to Apex Legends, which the bulk of the studio worked on previously. But in 2025, something changed.
Without the backing of a publisher such as EA like Apex had, Welch says the money behind the game was going directly into the development, and not marketing. And at some point in the mid-last year, The Game Awards’ Geoff Keighley dropped by Wildlight to play Highguard as one of the first people from outside the studio to do so, and he ended up loving it. He loved it so much that Keighley told them he wanted to “do something really special” and “different” to highlight the free-to-play shooter at TGA 2025.
Welch said that the TGA debut “wasn’t our strategy, but being independent, it felt honestly like an honor to be a part of the Game Awards show and be up there with all the big boys” like EA and Activision where many of Wildlight’s devs’ careers previously took them.
“We should probably take [the TGA opportunity], and who wouldn’t jump at that chance?” Welch said. “So, we deviated, and we quickly made a trailer. And ultimately, that trailer was not well-received. That’s on us. We made a trailer that entertained for the hundred million viewers around the world watching at home. We have a really unique game, the gameplay loop, which is probably really hard to do in a trailer, and we didn’t do that in the trailer, and we shouldn’t have done that. So, in hindsight, that was the wrong trailer to do.”
Highguard is described as a three-vs-three “raid shooter” where teams attack and defend bases with destructible walls like in Rust or Fortnite, loot gear around the map like a battle royale, and win by destroying the enemy base like in a MOBA. It’s unique and it’s fun, and the TGA trailer did not really convey any of this in any meaningful way.
Other than the trailer not at all being representative of the title’s unique gameplay loop and feel (after playing for several hours at the event, I concur wholeheartedly), Welch said that Highguard’s placement as the “one last thing” reveal during the awards show was not their choice. Given that a lot of the vitriol the game has received since then has been because players were expecting something like Half-Life 3 and saw a free-to-play hero shooter feels relatively unfair, but “it is what it is,” Welch said, adding that “we chose and we agreed to [the TGA debut trailer], so we’ll own that.”
“The narrative is not what we wanted, certainly we’re disappointed in the reaction, but we didn’t put our heads in the sand,” Welch said. “We listened. We shut up, and we listened. We knew that the next thing that we did had to be right, and the only thing that is right is hands on sticks. ‘Let’s just keep quiet, we know it’s gonna be painful, but there’s lessons to be learned here. We can listen to an audience talk and when we launch, they can form their own opinions.’ And so that’s all we ask.”
So, why the total silence on social media since then? Welch told me the plan “for years” was to shadow drop in January 2026 with a media event beforehand, and that plan did not change despite the negative discussion that’s been ongoing since TGA.
“The thing that became very clear is that people wanted to know more about the game, and our trailer didn’t educate people like it should have.” Wildlight studio head and co-founder, and Highguard game director Chad Grenier said. “So we’ve actually been spending the last five weeks now making sure that when we come out [on Jan. 26] that there’s something for players to, you know, it’s all about learning the game. So, our focus has changed from making a trailer that’s just action shots to educating players and letting them get their hands on the game because we feel like once people can play, they’ll understand our game actually is unique and innovative in a lot of ways, and very fun. So I just hope people give us a chance and make their decisions based on playing the game, not what they saw [at The Game Awards].”
And so, since the debut, the team has been working on around three dozen explanatory videos showcasing and detailing the game’s gameplay loop, characters, weapons, map, and more. Those videos, along with a gameplay deep dive and more, are all out now alongside the game’s launch.
In the end, like Apex before it, Highguard’s launch period is all about letting the gameplay speak for itself when everyone plays it. The hope for Highguard is that, now that it’s out in the wild, players will get on the game and try it out, play it for what it is, and then it will grow from there based on the merits of how fun the game is.
And judging from what I and others experienced in LA, I think it’s got a great chance to be a success. Wildlight thinks so, too, with a year of post-launch content already scheduled, and more in development. New Episodes (seasons) and battle passes priced at around $9 will drop every two months, with updates scheduled at least every month. Those passes will also never expire and can be bought retroactively if you missed out. In-game cosmetics, with nothing priced more than $20 at launch, will supplement the game in the long-run. And if players enjoy the game like Wildlight thinks they will, it should be a long run, indeed.
“It’s free-to-play, you can form your own opinion,” Welch said. “If you don’t like it, it’s not for you, that’s okay. But we think it’s a really good game. The team’s resilient. We’re really proud of what we’ve done.”
I hope that Highguard can come back from the negativity surrounding the game’s debut, and I think that it will. Welch and Grenier are hopeful, too, that the same passion that gave birth to the sometimes-angry discussion around the TGA trailer and silence afterwards will help shape the game’s future for the better.
“We heard you,” Grenier said of the salty feedback thus far. “You wanna know more about the game, here it is, give it a shot. We’ve got a proven track record of making great games. It’s not by luck. It’s because we put a lot of effort and passion, and we’ve got years and years of experience doing this. We’ve got a great game. It’s innovative, it’s fresh, and we’re here now to listen and be a part of our community. We’ve been silent and focusing on the game launch, but we’re here now, and we welcome you in.”
“We love games, too,” Welch said to prospective players. “We feel you, we hear you, we are with you. Hopefully we’ve made something that you’re gonna love. But today starts the feedback where we engage with you, so give us your feedback. Even if you don’t love it, let us hear it. We want to engage with you. We appreciate that you had enough passion that you wanted to comment about something that we put a lot of passion and love in. We didn’t put our best foot forward, but it’s here for you now.”
Highguard is available today, free-to-play, on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.
For more on Highguard, check out Destructoid’s coverage here:
- What is Highguard? ‘PvP raid shooter’ from ex-Apex Legends devs, explained
- All playable characters in Highguard – All Wardens and their abilities
- All weapons in Highguard – Full list of guns
- How to use mounts in Highguard – List of mount types
Wildlight Entertainment provided travel and lodging for the hands-on gameplay event in Los Angeles.
Published: Jan 26, 2026 12:00 pm