- Wildlight Entertainment CEO and founder Dusty Welch thinks the studio could have made a “better” trailer for Highguard
- “I wish Highguard had been received better. I wish the feedback had been better,” Welch says
- The game was released yesterday and now has a “Mostly Negative” score on Steam despite almost surpassing 100,000 concurrent players on Steam on launch day
As Highguard launches to negative reviews on Steam, Wildlight Entertainment’s CEO has admitted the studio could have marketed the game better.
The free-to-play PvP shooter, created by former Apex Legends and Titanfall developers, was announced as the ‘one last thing’ at The Game Awards last month with a lukewarm trailer and a January 26, 2026, release date.
Since then, Wildlight had been radio silent, offering no new details or social media updates on the game, which had everyone wondering if the game was going to be delayed.
Well, the game has officially released on PC and consoles, and although the game has achieved a peak of 97,249 concurrent players on launch day (via SteamDB), the game is currently sitting at a ‘Mostly Negative’ score on Steam, with 13,363 negative reviews compared to 6,027 positive reviews.
The response has been pretty mixed to say the least, and Wildlight Entertainment CEO and founder Dusty Welch wishes it had been received better ahead of launch.
Speaking to PC Gamer following a hands-on event last week, Welch discussed the response to the game’s announcement trailer at The Game Awards and admitted that the studio could have made a “better” trailer.
“Look, I wish Highguard had been received better. I wish the feedback had been better,” said Welch. “Part of that’s on us, right? We didn’t put our heads in the sand. We, as a team, saw the feedback. We’re gamers ourselves. We’re online ourselves reading the feedback.”
“I think, ultimately, we could have made a different trailer – a better trailer that wasn’t about entertaining, which is what we think [The Game Awards] was about. We could have made something that did a better job of highlighting the unique loop of the game. So that’s on us. We take that, but the team is resilient.”
Welch also said that Highguard was the ceremony’s final announcement, because the show’s host, Geoff Keighley, enjoyed his time playing the game and wanted “to do something different.”
“Geoff’s a friend of the studio. He came in and he played the game a couple of times, and he loved it,” Welch said.
“So when he said ‘Look, I’d love to do something different and put an indie studio and a free-to-play game up here and put it in the show,’ I mean, as an indie who was unknown by choice, who wouldn’t jump at the chance to do that? Here’s the biggest platform [in gaming], right?”
But why the radio silence after the game’s announcement? According to design and creative director Jason McCord, it was always the plan to go dark leading up to launch.
“The trailer at The Game Awards was meant to be an announcement trailer. The plan was to announce, go dark, and then the next thing that we want players to see is the game,” McCord said. “If the reception had been totally different, it would have been the same plan. The key is, you’ve got to play the game.”
If you’re thinking about checking out Highguard, the game is now available to play on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S.
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