'Highguard' Developer Attempts To Explain How Game Is Not Like Sony's Disastrous 'Concord'

Highguard Game Director Chad Grenier recently shared why he believes his newly released game is not like Sony’s disastrous Concord.

If you are unfamiliar with Concord, the game was announced in May 2023 during a PlayStation showcase. A gameplay trailer was then revealed a year later where it was revealed the game featured pronouns and pushed gender ideology on top of a bunch of DEI woke character designs.

When the game eventually released on August 23, 2024 it failed to break 700 concurrent players on Steam.

Less than two weeks after its release Sony announced it was shutting the game down and refunding people who purchased it. The game was officially shut down on September 6th and then by the end of October, Sony shut down the game’s developer Firewalk Studios.

In an interview with Variety, Grenier charged, ““I think we do have a very unique game that is unlike anything else out there on the market, and we’re really excited about it.”

However, he noted, “Our trailer didn’t highlight that well, and we’ll own that. But at the end of the day, we’re really excited just to get the game out on Monday and let it speak for itself, because I think that there is quite a bit there, as you’ve seen today, that is unexpected and new and refreshing. And there’s a lot of innovation in the game that wasn’t conveyed well in that one trailer.”

Developer Wildlight’s co-founder and CEO Dusty Welch also added that he wished the “sentiment had been a little bit better” but acknowledge that “there’s a lot of awareness for the game and for people to show up on 1/26 and play it.”

Firewalk Studios developers made similar comments ahead of the game’s release. The company’s Director of IP Kim Kreines told VGC, “Yeah, that trailer. That moment is such a tiny slice of everything that we’ve been working on for years and years. We’re excited for the game and for the IP, [and] for the game to be in people’s hands, the IP to be in people’s minds.”

“I’m personally very excited for the IP for folks to delve into the galactic guide if that is something they choose to do, for these vignettes to come out on a weekly basis. You’ll start to fall in love with the depth of the characters. That’s something that you learn week to week. Their personalities will unfold, their relationships will unfold for you, their backstories. None of that is something that you can get in a tiny little slice of it.”

“But that’s a start,” Kreines added. “There’s something there. So I’m glad folks watched it. I’m glad they participated and I can’t wait for them to see more, to see everything that is there.”

Speaking specifically to how Highguard is different from Concord, Grenier said, “Concord specifically, they were not a free game. So one thing that we’re hopeful for is that being a free game, people will show up and see that our game is actually locked on, and stick around. We can grow that player base over time.”

He also noted that the team composition is different, “It’s 3v3, so it doesn’t take hundreds of people to start a match, which is in our favor.”

Welch also claimed that they have no plan on shutting the game down, “What we’re confident in is that we’re not going anywhere. We’re not going away. We as a team have a lot of experience in building franchises that have staying power. And this one, as Chad alluded to, we have a year’s worth of content that’s near completion that is going to engage an audience for quite a bit of time.”

“So we’re excited to be able to bring that. We have the experience, but that said, we’re humbled, and we hope people love this — but we’re ready to engage with them,” he added.

Concord’s Lead Character Designer Jon Weisnewski made similar comments to PC Gamer as well, “Insanely proud of the game, we’re strapped in and ready to push it for years to come.”

While the game has had a better launch than Concord, it’s being quickly abandoned. The game hit a peak concurrent player count of 97,249, but that concurrent player count has already shrunk to 18,112 as of this writing.

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