Free to play games!

[weirdfeline]

Highguard is out and it is not Concord 2. It's closer to Apex Legends mixed with Rainbow Six Siege. The developer refers to it as a PvP raid shooter.

I hate that "It's Concord 2" is gonna be a thing now, it really undercuts how big of a disaster Concord was.  It's definitely not an interesting game though, 3v3 is such a terrible idea, makes a reasonably large map size, even if it has ways to corral people, feel empty and boring.  I wasn't gonna be into it even if it was like 5v5, because I just can't get into small scale hero shooter anymore and if I was gonna do anything hero shooter, I'd just go back to Marvel Rivals, that's at least got a dedicated player base and fun characters.

It's a shame, because I like the general gameplay idea, different objectives and phases, could be fun, but just make it like...not a hero shooter.  If this was like crazy fantasy/scifi fps with bigger teams where you trade back and forth base defense, that could be fun.

I actually enjoy Highguard and have played each day but yeah 3v3 is a really baffling decision. Comparing the map sizes in this game compared to Splatoon (which is 4v4) is hilarious.

I'd like to see 5v5 or more, faster respawns especially when defending a raid, not having to spawn at your base in the early game and having the 5 wall defense things from the start of the game refresh after a raid.

[weirdfeline]

They added 5v5 to Highguard!

[kamikazekeeg]

They added 5v5 to Highguard!

That's wild, I'm kinda wondering if they were worried about 3v3 from the start so were already considering adding that, but to do it so fast, even if just in an experimental state is crazy turnaround lol This doesn't really "fix" the game, I think it's still kinda bland and I'd rather see something larger than 5v5 (Which would in turn have to change the game from being less of a hero shooter), but you know what, I'll poke around for another match, why not lol

[weirdfeline]

Well, mass layoffs at the studio that made Highguard.

[kamikazekeeg]

Well, mass layoffs at the studio that made Highguard.

That's rough, I knew it was gonna be a struggle for them, but I thought at most they'd just tough it out for a few months to try and turn things around, add a lot, patch it up, try to see if they can turn the numbers around, they are a new studio and it's their only game, they kind have to make it work.  To just immediately layoff most of the team makes it feel like they went beyond their means, with expectations far past anything they were gonna get, like they expected this to do Marvel Rivals numbers or something.  Which was never gonna happen, because the game is light on content, it has an odd player count for a mode, and the stuff they were selling were just kinda okay.  It also released in a real sloppy state, as it was clearly not ready for launch and probably needed another couple months of development. 

Kinda wondering if its going to come out that this launch was a thing only because they were looking at running out of funding and so they had to release it no matter what in the hopes it takes off enough to keep funding the game...just sad to see.

*EDIT* It wasn't a studio shutdown level of layoffs, apparently they are going to continue supporting Highguard, so it sounds more like they were trimming jobs to to slim down and then will try to tough it out, see if they can't turn the player numbers around after adding some content and updates.