It was supposed to be the grand finale of the most important gaming night of the year. But instead of thunderous applause, the unveiling of the shooter Highguard was met with one thing above all else: ridicule, disappointment, and a flood of dislikes.
The last slot at the Game Awards is usually something like the Holy Grail. It’s the moment when Geoff Keighley takes a deep breath and the internet collectively goes into caps lock mode.
This year, however, instead of the hoped-for mega-hit, we got Highguard. A new free-to-play PvP hero shooter from Wildlight Entertainment, a fresh team of ex-developers from the Apex Legends and Titanfall universe. And that’s exactly where the problem begins.
Keighley sold the reveal as something special, including the message that the game was already well into development and that we would even get to see some gameplay. Then the trailer played. And while Highguard doesn’t objectively look like a total disaster, for many viewers it felt more like, “Okay. And why is this supposed to be the grand finale?”
YouTube responds… let’s say: clearly
The reveal was quickly accompanied by a poor like-dislike ratio on YouTube. On the Game Awards upload, for example, there were around 9,900 dislikes and about 956 likes.
Comparisons with Concord quickly appeared in the comments and on social media. Concord is the shooter that serves as a warning sign of how hard you have to fight for attention in the hero shooter genre right now.
Highguard currently sitting at the golden 1:10 Concord dislike ratio on YouTube. Hard to understate how tired people are of new live hero shooters
The craziest thing was to think you should close the show with this, howeverhttps://t.co/iN19lFOyzs pic.twitter.com/U98gho02Jx
— Paul Tassi (@PaulTassi) December 12, 2025
“Highguard looks nothing like Concord” pic.twitter.com/ZZsP7dyHIj
— Swagmite the 姫男子 (@TexasBronco777) December 13, 2025
Link to Twitter content
But the real sticking point lies deeper: many had briefly hoped for Titanfall vibes given the studio’s background, after Wildlight became known some time ago as the new home of several former Respawn heads. Instead, we now have a game that, at first glance, slips into the very crowded category of “team shooters with heroes, abilities, objectives, and colorful visuals.”
What is Highguard anyway?
