Highguard, a free-to-play PvP “raid shooter” that was introduced at The Recreation Awards final 12 months and launched to preemptive criticism and mock with most of its builders fired simply weeks after launch, was apparently funded by Tencent, the report stated.
That is in line with Recreation File, which reviews that the Chinese language gaming mogul is a significant monetary backer of developer Wildlight Leisure, an association that was not shared publicly by both firm.
Highguard was apparently in growth for years previous to its announcement at The Recreation Awards in December, nevertheless it was unclear who was funding Wildlight till this report. Its official LinkedIn web page has lengthy included a line about Wildlight being a “fully-funded new leisure studio.”
This grand announcement, instigated in time and place by The Recreation Awards host Geoff Keighley relatively than the studio, sparked weeks of ridicule on-line, with many content material creators declaring the sport useless earlier than launch. Highguard had practically 100,000 concurrent Steam customers at launch, however had solely so-so critic critiques (together with our personal) and low consumer scores. Only a few weeks later, Wildlight’s builders revealed that the majority of them had been fired. Since then, one developer who labored on the sport has stated that Excessive Guard “grew to become a joke from the start” as a result of incorrect assumptions from the TGA trailer, and lots of different distinguished builders have come to the sport’s protection.
It stays unclear how dependent Wildlight was on Tencent or whether or not sooner or later a choice was made to withdraw funds, which led to mass layoffs. Wildlight’s future as a studio additionally stays unsure, with a press release from the studio saying it’ll retain a “core group of builders” to maintain Highguard afloat. Nevertheless, the sport’s web site went offline earlier right now and has but to be restored, main some to take a position that the sport and even the studio could also be shut down for good.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter at videogameaddicted. Do you’ve gotten any story ideas? Ship it to rvalentine@videogameaddicted.com.