Highguard's trailer landed with a thud at 2025's biggest award show, but it didn't pay for the privilege.
Remember when Apex Legends was shadow dropped? It’s a risky move for such a high-profile game to skip all the pre-release marketing hype entirely, but it paid off, and it’s clear why Respawn went that route—“photoreal PvP hero shooter” was an eyeroll-inducing prospect even back in 2019, so letting the game speak for itself short-circuited any pre-release angst.
We don’t know if the strategy could have been replicated, but would it have been worse than the late Concord’s legendary failure or the reaction to the recently announced Highguard, which was the final big reveal at last year’s Game Awards? Viewers expecting something like 2023’s Monster Hunter Wilds reveal or the one-two Matrix Unreal Engine 5 tech demo and Matrix 4 trailer in 2021 have been taking out their frustrations on Highguard.
The reveal was drowned out by hot takes calling out its “Concord vibes” and it received a ghastly 2,400 dislikes on YouTube compared to around 500 likes when it first dropped. There’s been an assumption to some of the criticism that Highguard wanted this smoke, so to speak—an idea that if the Highguard studio hadn’t splurged on such an exclusive spot, it wouldn’t have earned all this ire.
I personally don’t judge a game on the spot it got in a show. As someone who likes hero shooters, I give it a chance (if it runs on Linux). My first reaction was, that the game doesn’t look interesting. But re watching the trailer, there is some stuff going on. And coming from the Titanfall / Apex Legends team, this can be a good game in the end. I honestly want to have more hero shooters to choose from…
Yes, it was disappointing as the last special “there is one more thing”. But honestly, can you judge the entire game by that? Or should you judge the show instead? Off course if you don’t like hero shooters, that’s a different story.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Rules
1. Submissions have to be related to games
Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.
This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.
2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil
No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.
We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.
3. No excessive self-promotion
Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.
This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.
4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you’re submitting before posting to see if it’s already been posted.
We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.
5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW
Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.
No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.
6. No linking to piracy
Don’t share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.
We don’t want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.
I personally don’t judge a game on the spot it got in a show. As someone who likes hero shooters, I give it a chance (if it runs on Linux). My first reaction was, that the game doesn’t look interesting. But re watching the trailer, there is some stuff going on. And coming from the Titanfall / Apex Legends team, this can be a good game in the end. I honestly want to have more hero shooters to choose from…
Yes, it was disappointing as the last special “there is one more thing”. But honestly, can you judge the entire game by that? Or should you judge the show instead? Off course if you don’t like hero shooters, that’s a different story.
Judging how they blocked Linux players on Apex Legends, I doubt it will run on Linux…
But its not from EA, isn’t it?