In the early hours of December 12, 2025, at around 5 a.m., The Game Awards 2025 are about to announce their verdict. Which game will be named “Game of the Year”? But before the top prize is awarded, everyone holds their breath, hoping for one more stunning surprise. In 2024, it was Naughty Dog with Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet that brought a spectacular evening to a close.
This time, it’s a free-to-play competitive FPS called Highguard that has been given the final preview at the 2025 Game Awards. Admittedly, this announcement surprised, disappointed, or even annoyed a large portion of the audience. Another online shooter?! Although designed by the creators of Apex Legends and Titanfall, this new franchise doesn’t seem particularly original at first glance. But the die is cast, as Highguard is set to be released on January 26, 2026.
The media failure of an unexpected “one more thing”
The title developed and published by Wildlight Entertainment quickly came under fire from critics. By positioning itself at the very end of The Game Awards, Highguard gained significant media exposure that could ultimately prove detrimental. If the announcement trailer had been shown in the middle of the show, we’re willing to bet that almost everyone would have forgotten about it. Nevertheless, this video is currently the only marketing material for the game.
On IGN’s YouTube channel, the trailer has 463,000 views, 4,966 likes, and 57,886 dislikes. As for the game’s official channel, it has barely 107,000 views (1,480 likes and 13,484 dislikes). While the ratio speaks for itself, it’s also important to note that for a “one more thing” at the end of an event with over 171 million live views, Highguard failed to attract the crowds.
A totally saturated market
Such disenchantment does not come out of nowhere. Highguard has not even been released yet, and some are already listing its flaws and predicting a fate similar to that of Concord. Indeed, the free-to-play shooter sector seems more congested than ever with fierce competition. Fortnite, Apex Legends, Call of Duty Warzone, ARC Raiders, Destiny 2, and Warframe offer solid experiences that have been comfortably established in the gaming landscape for many years. Displacing them or carving out a place among these big names would now be a feat.
To stand out, it is necessary to deliver an attractive formula and an exciting universe that will encourage players to invest in the long term. Unfortunately, given the glaring lack of communication around the game, it is currently impossible to become attached to its world, let alone the characters that inhabit it. It is always very difficult to sell skins or any in-game items without the community having a strong attachment to the elements that establish the lore of a franchise.
A deafening silence
At the time of writing, we are just ten days away from launch, and the marketing campaign has stalled. Since Highguard is developed and self-published by Wildlight Entertainment, we can assume that the communications budget is extremely limited. With the ad placement at The Game Awards potentially costing the studio several million dollars, the company’s coffers could be empty. The developers were possibly betting on the success of their game to bring in money quickly.
Furthermore, given the constant negativity surrounding the project on social media, any public statement would have been met with a barrage of criticism and dire predictions. With social media and other online platforms being what they are these days, any attempt at communication would inevitably backfire. The studio is therefore keeping quiet, waiting for a break in the clouds or the inevitable release date it committed to in December.
Can Highguard still pull through?
The game’s success currently seems highly unlikely. But there are two possibilities open to the Wildlight teams to save their project. First, there is a last-minute postponement. This would give the developers some breathing space to rework certain aspects of the title and perhaps even offer a beta version first in order to gather honest feedback. A delay would also allow them to plan a long-term communication campaign based on feedback from players and the specialist press.
The second possibility is to launch Highguard on the scheduled date of January 26, 2026. The studio will undoubtedly face a barrage of criticism, but could gradually turn things around by listening to users (provided they show up). This would involve adopting a relatively lenient policy on microtransactions. For example, games such as No Man’s Sky and Fallout 76 suffered from a failed launch before recovering thanks to their attractive content and various changes of direction. Hello Games even went so far as to offer all its future updates for free.
In any case, it will all depend on Wildlight Entertainment’s resilience and, above all, its financial capabilities. Without a major publisher behind it, the studio won’t have the opportunity to endure for too long. Of course, Highguard could also prove all the critics wrong by establishing itself from the outset as a sure bet with solid gameplay, a balanced experience, and unobtrusive monetization. Unfortunately, even with all the qualities in the world, the game’s future already seems sealed.
