- Wildlight Entertainment CEO and founder Dusty Welch believes the studio could have made a “better” trailer for High guard
- “I wish Highguard had been better received. I wish the response had been better,” Welch says.
- The game launched yesterday and now has a “Mostly Negative” score on Steam despite nearly surpassing 100,000 concurrent players on Steam on launch day.
As High guard releases to negative reviews on Steam, the CEO of Wildlight Entertainment has admitted that the studio could have marketed the game better.
The free PvP shooter, created by former Apex legends and titan fall developers, was announced as ‘the latest thing’ at The Game Awards last month with a lukewarm trailer and a January 26, 2026 release date.
Since then, Wildlight had been silent, offering no new details or updates on social media about the game, leaving everyone wondering if the game would be delayed.
Well, the game has officially launched for PC and consoles, and while it peaked at 97,249 concurrent players on launch day (via SteamDB), the game currently has a “Mostly Negative” score on Steam, with 13,363 negative reviews compared to 6,027 positive reviews.
The response has been quite mixed, to say the least, and Wildlight Entertainment CEO and founder Dusty Welch wishes it had been received better before release.
Speaking to PC Gamer after 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 better received. I wish the response had been better,” Welch said. “Part of it is up to us, right? We don’t bury our heads in the sand. We, as a team, saw the comments. We are players ourselves. We are online and we read the comments.”
“I think ultimately we could have made a different trailer, a better trailer that wasn’t entertaining, which is what we thought. [The Game Awards] it was about. We could have done something that did a better job of highlighting the game’s unique loop. So that’s up to us. “We accept it, but the team is resilient.”
Look
Welch also said that Highguard was the final announcement of the ceremony, because the show’s host, Geoff Keighley, enjoyed his time playing and wanted to “do something different”.
“Geoff is a friend of the studio. He came and played a couple of times and 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 here and put it on the show,’ I mean, as an unknown indie by choice, who wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to do that? Here’s the biggest platform. [in gaming]good?”
But what is the reason for the radio silence after the match announcement? According to creative and design director Jason McCord, the plan was always to go dark before launch.
“The Game Awards trailer was meant to be an announcement trailer. The plan was to announce, turn it off, and then the next thing 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 that you have to play the game.”
If you’re thinking of taking a look High guardThe game is now available to play on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S.
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