Highguard has arrived after its blockbuster debut as the final feature of The Game Awards, casting a spotlight on it that it was never meant to have. Developer Wildlight said that the original plan was a shadow drop, like Apex Legends before it, but the Game Awards press turned its release into much more of an event.
Now, the first figures are in. As a free-to-play game, anyone could hop in and try Highguard, and a number of high-profile streamers made it a top-viewed game on Twitch for a time. Highguard opened with 97,000 concurrent players, a number I do not think it would have reached were it not for all the Game Awards fuss, which was a strong start.
On its second day, however, there was a sharp drop-off in peak concurrent players on Steam, as Highguard didn’t break 20,000 on day 2. It went from 97,000 to 19,000, an 80% drop in just 24 hours. That’s…significant.
There were many reasons for this, from technical, as it really does not run great on PC, something Wildlight is working on, to people just plain not vibing with the game. There’s a lot of “yeah, it’s fine,” but after a few hours or a day or so of playing, that was enough to move on and not return for more the next day.
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The drop is sharp, but we still don’t actually know what Wildlight’s expectations are here. The team has said they do not need a sky-high player count and want to develop a game for its core audience who stick around. Though how many players that will be remains to be seen. These are peak concurrents, and not considering console players. It stands to reason the percent drop will be similar on console, but I don’t think you can consider Highguard a “failure” in 48 hours. There’s just a lot we don’t know, and no, in no way is this going to be some sort of Concord, shut-down-in-two-weeks situation.
There is a debate right now over whether players were predisposed to be overly “hostile” toward the game, with many “rooting” for it to fail. I’m not sure I buy that. The game’s trailer was generally poorly received. Now, the game has launched, and it has a 37% positive score on Steam, classifying it as “mostly negative.” I think you can take issue with players who played for ten minutes and gave it a bad review because they couldn’t get connected to the server, but yes, I think spending a day or so with the game is enough to make a judgment. I have also seen no significant “woke/DEI” culture war situation where it would be review bombed just for that reason.
I don’t think there’s a way to spin that this isn’t great. You don’t want to lose that many players that quickly, free-to-play or not, and you don’t want to launch with a Mostly Negative status on Steam, something I don’t think you can dismiss by saying fans simply “wanted” to hate the game. Many people didn’t think it looked good. Many people played and thought it was not good. This is not some wild conclusion.
Again, if Highguard can find its niche and further develop the game over time, that’s really all it needs. Whatever Wildlight’s standard of success is, hopefully it hits it, though I am curious to see how this is doing a month from now.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.