A degree designer laid off from Highguard developer Wildlight believes the free-to-play shooter’s difficulties stem from having “leaned too far into the aggressive scene”.
Acknowledging that the “actually massive highlight” positioned on the sport following its reveal at The Recreation Awards moreover added strain, senior degree designer Alex Graner talked candidly on the Quad Injury podcast concerning the “always evolv[ing]” recreation, suggesting that his “greatest worry [came] when [the studio] determined to go full-in on 3v3”.
“I can solely converse to my aspect of it as a degree designer, however once I joined [Wildlight], it was making an attempt to determine this new, bold recreation, and this group is all the time pushing the boundaries,” he stated, as transcribed by PCGN. “You do not attempt to create one thing that does not work out, but it surely occurs, sadly. All through improvement, we actually leaned into the aggressive aspect of it, and that was all the time one among my greatest fears as a participant.
“3v3 duos is all the time the sweatiest model of something like battle royale, goal modes, wingman, you already know it, you identify it,” he added. “It requires such a excessive depth of communication together with your group, and group play, that it would not depart a lot room for casualness. I believe that was the largest factor that turned a whole lot of gamers off Highguard.”
Graner stated Apex Legends got here simply as battle royales had been a “type of an up-and-coming mode” and was “very easy to know after you performed one recreation”, which is why it was so profitable. Conversely, Highguard was a bit of extra advanced.
“Highguard has all these totally different guidelines and levels, it is like, ‘Oh, you wish to loot, now we have got to chase this goal, now we’ve got to plant this goal, now it is time beyond regulation… It has all these guidelines, which I believe works at a very excessive degree, however when gamers are first coming in it is rather a lot to know,” he admitted.
“On high of all that, as a result of it was 3v3, that type of recreation simply requires high-skill motion and taking pictures, which is already a fairly excessive [bar to] entry as properly. So in the event you simply have a couple of unhealthy video games or your teammates aren’t sticking collectively, you are simply going to get rolled, and it’s extremely laborious to 1v2 in our recreation.
“It is all designed to be a team-based shooter. I believe that was the largest factor. Individuals simply type of turned it off as a result of they did not have the group.”
Simply yesterday (twenty seventh February), a brand new report alleged that Tencent pulled funding from developer Wildlight simply two weeks after the sport’s launch. Workers had been referred to as to an all-hands assembly, after which instructed that there could be layoffs as Tencent had pulled funding as Highguard had seemingly failed to fulfill no matter metrics Tencent had for it.
Wildlight publicly confirmed layoffs a day later however would not specify numbers, and it insisted “a core group of builders” remained to work on the sport. It is thought fewer than 20 folks stay at Wildlight at the moment.
Tencent’s function in Highguard’s improvement was, curiously, saved quiet. It wasn’t till a number of days after the layoffs that Recreation File confirmed Tencent’s involvement. The explanation for the secrecy across the firm’s involvement is unclear.
