There’s been a lot of chatter and discussion around Highguard since it was revealed at ‘The Game Awards’ last year. Despite the pedigree – a new shooter from the minds behind Titanfall and Apex Legends, plenty of gamers and pundits have questioned just why a free-to-play shooter got to take the coveted ‘one last reveal’ spot during Geoff Keighley’s show. As it turns out, it was originally never planned to be there at all. Highguard was meant to be a ‘shadow-drop’.
During a group interview at an event focused on today’s Highguard launch (you can check out our preview right here), we had the opportunity to sit around and ask questions of the team at Wildlight Entertainnment – namely Vice President of Product and Publishing Jason Torfin and Lead Designer Mohammed Alavi – and they were both in good spirits, and understandably nervous and excited for the upcoming launch.
Quite naturally, many of games media in attendance had plenty of questions around the release plans for Highguard, be it the reaction to trailer from the Game Awards, the lack of communication following the reveal, and how it came to be at the show in the first place.
As it turns out, they had always planned for it to be ‘shadow-dropped’ in January of 2026, and the trailer for The Game Awards was finalised quite late in their plans – and mostly because Geoff Keighley really liked the game.
Jason Tofin expanded on things when the subject of the games ‘shadow-drop’ launch and content plans came up, saying “I think the fact that we’re independent and that we’re smart with how we run our business and build our team means that we have those luxuries. We’re not beholden to shareholders or any sort of other corporate shenanigans, and it allows us to have that sort of confidence. And from the get-go, you can’t bank on commercial success right out of the gate. If you do that, you’re probably going to fail most of the time.“
“And that’s why we were going to shadow drop.” he said “Let the game speak for itself. It was always the plan. And then, you know, Geoff came in the past year and he played the game. I mean, he really liked it and he was stoked. And we had an opportunity and we decided, okay, we can make a trailer that would be in our shadow-drop. And so the one we put there [at The Game Awards] was the one that would be the first thing you saw in the shadow-drop, followed by twenty-five minutes of other context. And unfortunately, that trailer wasn’t meant to be the thing to ‘educate’.”
Outside of the success previously seen when Apex Legends launched as a shadow-drop, the team were asked just what they made of the behaviour towards the game online, where pundits, creators and players of a certain persuasion almost seem excited to declare the game ‘dead’ before it has even been given a fair shake. Does Highguard have sufficient runway if the numbers aren’t massive straight away?
Per Lead Designer Mohammed Alavi, “Well, honestly, we don’t need the number to be super huge in order to be successful. Like, we’re a small team. The matchmaking pool, like a six-player match – is not hard to find. What we’re really hoping for is a core group of fans that love us, and that will allow us to grow. As far as the – living in the world, being the ‘ire’ of the internet hate machine? It sucks, but I try to just focus on making the best game I can and get that game into people’s hands. At the end of the day, that’s all that really matters.”
“I think one thing we believe in, deeply – as a team – is the power of serendipity.” says Jason. “We were always planning on shadow dropping this thing, right? And we had an opportunity late in the game to be a part of ‘The Game Awards’, and we’re grateful to Geoff for giving us the opportunity. It didn’t go the way we wanted it to, but we’re here and we’re excited and we have a lot of things up our sleeve, as you can see today – like we’ve prepared for this moment for many years.”
Are you excited to give Highguard a try? Don’t forget to check out our preview coverage and our full match playthrough so you can get a feel for things. And let us know your thoughts in the XboxEra Forums or make some noise in the lively XboxEra Community Discord Server. If you’re looking to be a bigger part of an amazing community, then either choice is a good one!
