Just wanted to give a little eulogy to

Highguard. Sure many of you have heard

the news of its passing.

They are shutting it down. So, it truly

is a certified goodbye guard situation

here. The writing was on the wall. The

last update we got with High Guard

wasn't exactly joyous. It was about the

layoffs that they were experiencing

where they let go of the majority of the

development team. So, it felt like it

was just a matter of when as opposed to

if they pulled it off life support. it

had been hemorrhaging players and they

didn't have the confidence to see it

through to see if they could find a

community that would fall in love with

it through like updates and tinkering

around which I'll reiterate I find to

just be so vomit inducing as a norm in

this industry where they'll put millions

of dollars into these projects and if

they don't instantly become the next

Fortnite or something they just

call it curtains like doom and gloom

we're dead is what it is on to the next

one like they don't even really like

try. They farted out like a whole road

map for this game off RIP to show that

they're like really committed to

building it with the community only to

just instantly bury it 45 days later. It

only lasted like a Concord and a half.

It's so odd. These executives, man, like

I don't know what they expect. Anyone

could have looked at the trailer for

this game at the end of the Game Awards,

which absolutely blew its ass wide open.

That was a really unfortunate position

for it to be in because of the

expectations for a game like this. It

already put a sour taste in people's

mouths. But anyone could look at this

game and tell you, yeah, it's not

exactly going to stand toe-to-toe with

the big dogs. This is something that

would need to carve out a niche over

time in order to find an audience. Like

it's it just surprises me that they all

have become so diluted that they think

it's going to happen immediately for

them. It's not. So, this game made it

like 45 days, and I'm sure learning of

its shutdown isn't the most surprising

thing YOU'VE EVER HEARD BECAUSE it's

probably the most surprising thing

you've ever heard. We'll look at their

statement, though. High Guard's final

update arriving soon. Thank you for

playing with us. Today, we're sharing

difficult news. We have made the

decision to permanently shut down High

Guard on March 12th. Since launch, more

than 2 million players stepped into

Highguard's world. You shared feedback,

created content, and many believed in

what we were building. For that, we are

deeply grateful. Despite the passion and

hard work of our team, we have not been

able to build a sustainable player base

to support the game long term, which

runs contradictory to what was stated

initially once the players started to

drop off after day one about like we

don't need massive players. You know,

player count isn't everything. We can

continue to sustain this for the whole

road map. Like now it's a very

different song and dance here. Servers

will remain online until March 12th. We

hope you'll jump in with us one more

time to show your support and get those

final great matches in while we still

can. The team is excited to release one

final game update to enjoy in the

remaining life of the game. We'll be

adding a new warden, a new weapon,

account level progression, and skill

trees. All patch notes are coming, and

we're targeting tonight or tomorrow

morning for patch release. From all of

us at Wild Light, thank you for playing,

for supporting us, and being part of

Highguard's story. They're sailing off

into the sunset with one last content

drop here for Highguard.

And I got to tell you again, sports

fans, I just don't know what kind of

stupid juice executives are

squirting down their gullet there, the

video games industry, to make them think

that games like this are going to

immediately pop off. Re be real. A game

in this genre that is so

saturated is going to need some time to

bake. It's going to need a lot of tinder

love and care, a lot of alterations, a

lot of listening to the community in

order to build something that will

hopefully get more players in the door.

It was never going to be like a smashing

global phenomenon or anything like that.

That is very rare. I just don't get how

they wouldn't have accounted for that an

allocated budget of like here's what

we're going to go for for this length of

time and if we don't grow to this level

over the course of like 6 months or

something then we call it quits. They

give it just over a month like it never

stood a chance. Even setting aside the

blunder of the Game Awards for High

Guard, even if that didn't happen, it

probably would still be getting shut

down right now. Or maybe it would have

even happened earlier because at least

the Game Awards put a lot of peepers on

it. And even though it was like, you

know, people just looking to clown on

it, it did get a lot of people in the

door initially to try it to the tune of

almost like a 100,000 concurrent on day

one. So maybe if that didn't happen, it

wouldn't have even come close to that

and they would have shut the doors after

three days or something like,

"Oh, it's over. Okay, everyone go home.

Pack your bags. You're fired. It

didn't work. Like it maybe that's how it

would have happened if the Game Awards,

you know, blunder didn't go down the way

it did. Who's really to say? But all I

can tell you is that I find it really

just gross that these companies only

give a game like a month, a month and

some change to be like the biggest game

in the world as opposed to like working

at it for a long time. Like let's take

for example Rainbow Six Siege. I don't

know how many old heads out here

remember launch Rainbow Six Siege. That

was almost nonfunctional.

Siege was in a bad spot for a really,

really, really long time. For like a

whole month or two after its release, it

was the high guard of shooters. People

would go into Siege just to make fun of

the So like that game had

by all definitions a like Rocky launch.

Now of course it did have more players.

I get that. It is like a huge budget

title, but even still, by all

definitions, it was a game that was

floundering. But over the course of so

much iterating, so much changing, and

spending a lot of time, it was able to

carve out a niche and grow into a

successful game. Now, High Guard, of

course, came out, and when people tried

it, they weren't blown away. It was mid.

That's that is just how it is. It wasn't

spectacular. It wasn't the shittiest

thing in the world. It was just mid. It

was kind of a been there done that kind

of thing, but with a different coat of

paint, like a different spin on it kind

of where now it's like pseudo base

rating. But it still just felt like the

same dish we had been served numerous

times before. But that's not to say it

would always exist in that state. Maybe

over time they could have fleshed

something out and made something unique

out of it that would have attracted a

community to it. You never know. And now

we will never know because the game's

already getting shut down in just over a

month. Like, it's just so weird

to see how content these companies are

in the industry to just dump millions,

millions, millions, millions out the

wazoo on these games and then they only

let them live for like just over a month

or sometimes even less. What a huge

waste of time and money in that

case if you're not even going to try to

see where things go down the line. I get

it's still expensive to keep running the

games which is why I think these

companies need to be a lot more

realistic with their expectations on

things like a

pseudo hero shooter experience. Like

come on, wake up. This is ridiculous.

Now again, it's not exactly surprising

because there's at at the moment 350

players playing hard high guard. That's

not a substantial player base to justify

like still spending oodles of clams

developing it. I get that. Which is why

this is not shocking in the slightest. I

just feel like it's something they

should have been preparing for and maybe

heaven forbid not investing millions

upon millions upon millions upon

millions of dollars into these games

expecting them to instantly blow up and

instantly make all your money back

within the first 48 hours of it

being live. But who knows? Maybe I'm

just on the crackpipe with that take. It

just feels stupid. It feels like this

was the most predictable thing that you

could have seen unfold from any level.

Like anyone who has any level of

experience in gaming could have told you

Highguard was going to struggle finding

like a solid player base, like a sizable

player base. It would take a long time

and a lot of work and a lot of effort to

carve out a niche and they weren't

willing to commit to it. So now they've

shut it down. Anyway, just wanted to let

you all know that Highguard's going

offline pretty soon.

The the guards are going to be sailing

off high into Valhalla, it seems. That's

uh that's really about it. See you.