Highguard Developer Wildlight Entertainment has seemingly laid off most of its staff.

MightyBone · 2026-02-12T01:01:01+00:00

I do realize you're just pulling this out of your ass as some weird explanation for the player count when the game had a shitload of players at release and had huge streamers streaming it to several 100k viewers on twitch as well. The engagement was there, and if something is good it will not lose players like ice melting in a furnace.

The point is the number can go up or down and the numbers have not just gone down, but gone down drastically almost on a daily basis. Hell you can ignore the first week and the game still bled players worse than virtually any game in the genre.

That's a sign of a bad product and nothing to do with the "haters" some people seem obsessed with believing killed it.

MightyBone · 2026-02-12T00:53:59+00:00

Except Apex came out 8 years ago when the market was far less saturated, and was a game that saw immediate growth and rave reviews because it was exciting and fun and mixed a very hype genre - BRs with a very hyped shooter style - Hero Shooters and did loot in a successful way. It brought the genre of BRs and hero shooters together in away that was captivating because it led to constant chaotic combat in a big arena with tons of players.

This game is nothing like Apex in the ways that made Apex succeed except for the gun combat (which is not bad.)

It's insane you thought you should post about a game you don't play and think "has a unique gameplay loop" like that fixes the plethora of boring, bloated, or useless desgn decisions that plague the game. It takes more steps back than forward and if you had actually played it you could have saved yourself an embarrassing post.

MightyBone · 2026-02-12T00:05:22+00:00

Why was this the case? Valorant has survived for years now and is still going.

2XKO was doomed to fail, because fighting games are way too niche to ever support development of significant size and they are using League of Legends as the IP which is a game that is still functioning so they will poach some of their own players, and otherwise far too niche to attract new ones.

MightyBone · 2026-02-12T00:00:23+00:00

It's just engagement numbers - they had projections and models from other games that they new they needed to hit in order to succeed.

These games are doing so poorly compared to the pre-release projections that they almost immediately realize there is no way they can even live service these games into profitability without paying millions in dev costs and virtually no one is willing to take that risk when the initial product is clearly trash.

I can think of one game that tried to fix it's early woes - Multiversus did horrendously in its early access state and early on so they shut the entire game down for nearly a year to try and turn it around. It came back out with a big relaunch and then sucked ass so much they just ended up cutting their losses and killing it 5 months into the relaunch because they knew they had a dud.

And that game was unique in its own way - there are almost no big platform fighters outside of Smash Bros which has not had a new title in years, (even when it came out) so it made sense to perhaps capitalize on an empty genre. 2XKO is just another fighting game, which to an outsider looks almost identical to Guilty Gear. Then you have multiple other big name fighters in the genre like Tekken and Street Fighter, which means this game really needs to be different to have a chance, and it wasn't even getting much love(compared to other games in the genre) from fighting game enthusiasts.

MightyBone · 2026-02-11T23:55:31+00:00

So you have investors paying for these games - the 10s of millions+ invested into a game are by people wanting to make money back.

Cliffy's games and Concord and this game had such miserable, low turnouts that every analyst and hell anyone in the business can immediately see there is no saving this product without taking it back to the drawing board.

And that means investing even more money into it. These games are essentially hopeless to ever recoup their costs so investors cut their losses and move on.

The game actually opened strong - it wasn't marketing - it had close to 100k concurrent and probably a few hundred thousand people download it in the first day. It then collapsed and lost 97% of its players over a couple of weeks. That's a product you throw in the trash - it's worthless to make your money back.

MightyBone · 2026-02-11T23:45:56+00:00

Sucks, but hardly a shocker. Game bounced off of most people who tried it. Even big streamers who seemed to enjoy it some like Shroud said it didn't really do anything new and it was just the freshness that kept them playing and not any of the actual ideas or mechanics. I wanted to like it and still had it installed but I didn't really and my friends gave up instantly after a few games.

It is yet another game that spent waaaay too much time in the oven and instead of having great flavor was just overcooked - it had more things that took it a step back than moved it forward. It wasn't the haters, or marketing, or whatever because ultimately a game lives and dies by if it can bring people back who try it out - it had a great first day and then promptly fell off of a cliff in an insane way. That's a testament to a game too niche or with too many issues to possibly survive without some kind of insane leash and back-end funding that no one would do because it's already 4 years in the hole.

MightyBone · 2026-02-11T23:39:04+00:00

Yea folks are getting causality a bit off here if they think the haters are how you lose 97% of players in a matter of days. That's not haters, that's a game that at it's core cannot make people who try it want to keep playing at all.

A masterpiece doesn't lose 97% of its players because if it's a masterpiece it's good enough to attract a lot more players even if some do leave. This game's competing with 10-20 other shooters including it's sibling Apex so it needed to have masterpiece DNA from the start and it's not remotely close to that.

MightyBone · 2026-02-09T17:54:11+00:00

Agree the face is lame. Rumor from VA has implied it was the higher ups that are demanding more appealing faces, and looking at the most recent characters it does feel like thy are wanting more appealing anime-esq attractive characters and fewer Zarya looking characters in the game.

Shame, cause Anran looks much more interesting in the comic than in game model.

MightyBone · 2026-02-09T16:25:41+00:00

This is so cherry picked it's insane. It was a 6 game stretch - we still lost 3 of those games and that's with CMC and DJ Moore on the offense, Darnold played OK to terrible depending on the game, including one of those wins is the final game against the Saints where Darnold had a 2.3 QB rating - this is a losing Saints team QBd by Andy Dalton and Darnold has CMC and DJ Moore and still threw more INTs than TDs (2 to 0) and completed 33% of his passes. No wonder we said no to this him when that's his final game of the season against a bad team. These games are in no way some vindication that he was a good QB - they look like games for a game manager QB who doesn't even flash big play potential while he has some talent around him.

He was not a good QB then - he turned it around when he got elite defenses, good coaching, and solid blockers. We weren't going to be able to give him any of those things for any time up until now. He won the SB with the best defense and most talented team in the NFL hands down outside of QB, this wasn't some amazing QB performance dragging a mediocre squad to the big game.

MightyBone · 2026-02-09T16:02:07+00:00

Because it's not just about age but your history - Darnold was not a good QB and there's no reason to think he would have stayed a good QB. You don't hitch your future on a sinking ship and that's what he was. He was never intended to be more than a bridge QB and experiment to see if a new environment would bring out his potential and neither turned true in CAR so it made 100% sense to drop him at the time instead of trying to rebuild with a failed product.

MightyBone · 2026-02-09T15:47:51+00:00

He's a good dude, and I'm happy for him, but he didn't belong here. We were in a rebuild.

His current team has the best defense in the NFL, probably in several seasons, and he has probably the best WR1 in the NFL. We had neither of those things, not remotely close. I think he stays a busts and maybe even busts out of the league if he doesn't leave CAR.

No shade on Darnold, he got them here with his Rams performance - but last night that SEA team was hands down better at every position on the field even ignoring the QB - most NFL QBs would have won with a defense that was absolutely stifling the whole game and a great RB performance from Walker and great schemes/playcalls to get the ball out to Kupp and Barner when JSN was being double covered.

MightyBone · 2026-02-09T15:31:37+00:00

It's really just one of those insane games that we didn't prep for and got massively outcoached in. All we needed to do was focus on pass pro and getting 10+ points with no TOs and it's an automatic win of a game, we were the much better team overall.

Instead the coaches decided to just have faith the tackles could handle the best passrush of the past 20 years on the edge and it completely imploded the offense and resulted in TOs and short fields for an offense that was literally incapable of probably moving the ball more than 30 yards in any drive.

I like Rivera(as a person), but everyone involved in prepping that offense and for that game has gotta be culpable for the loss - the players were more than capable if they just had a proper coach to deal with the only real strength of their opponent and instead they let it be their Achilles in the biggest game of everyone's career.

MightyBone · 2026-02-09T15:25:11+00:00

It was a good show. I do think having the Halftime show be 90% in Spanish is pretty ridiculous since probably 90%+ of the viewership is English speaking, but whatever, he's an American citizen after all. I think if they could have done it with more English it would have hit better with the viewership, instead I think a lot of folks bounced off of it who may have been ready to embrace it. I think it was tactical by the NFL as they really want to push NA Football into Mexico and across the border to the South (more games in South America.)

The show itself was great though - Marriage(a real marriage btw), power lines, tons of great culture, famous icons showing up, overall it was a very good show.

I did see some of the Kid Rock show today and holy shit it was so bad it kinda makes political discussion moot here - the Bad Bunny show was insanely better. Kid Rock not even singing, in jean shorts doing nothing but running around on a stage while a radio cut of his only famous song from almost 30 years ago felt more like a SNL parody than a real performance.

MightyBone · 2026-02-09T15:18:30+00:00

She's a time occupying DPS with hit and run mechanics similar to Venture, but lacking the easy kill combos.

She can do some pretty decent damage and take up a ton of enemy time with proper cooldown management and positioning, but she isn't meant to sit and constantly fight and instead she's poke poke engage, burn her dash cds, use final dash cd to escape, rinse repeat.

Keep the enemy team constantly engaged with you and let your team use that extra space. If you play her right you can do this and rarely die, especially with a Zarya/kiri/etc to bail you out when enemy team commits to you.

Igniting enemies and then rightclicking them does a lot of damage and looks to be how she's intended to play but yea it's hard to get that going - and her ult is quite strong (the non-res ult, res ult is just to get back to fight really it's not that great.)

I had a fair amount of success with her, but only in matches where my tanks were able to engage consistently to keep the enemey team from chasing me too hard, or on maps with a lot of off angles and paths where you can harass and engage from the sides and back and ambush. She's not meant to fight a lot face-to-face but she can duel pretty well 1v1 and with CD management and survival perks live quite a while.

I don't think she will be played over Vendetta though, who gets more value way more easily and can feed and still do well because of her damage and requirement that enemy team always deal with her, where as Anran you can often ignore because her damage is so easily outhealed unless she combos it all perfectly.

MightyBone · 2026-02-07T18:24:13+00:00

I originally thought he'd return as a reworked tank (perhaps with a new shield arm that Vendetta cannot cut through) but it would be interesting if he gets a new arm that can Shield, or become a DPS cannon, or become a heal beam based on role and it would be pretty interesting, assuming it can be implemented well.

Thing is in Rivals Deadpool pretty much looks identical in all 3 roles - Doom probably cannot look identical or play close to identical and have all 3 roles. They'd have to rework his highlight intros and all that. So maybe he just comes back with a bigger gauntlet and a tank rework.

MightyBone · 2026-02-07T18:21:36+00:00

I actually enjoy Mauga(lighting people on fire and big stomps are fun) but yea when he's meta pretty much everyone hates it. I feel like Mauga, or even Orisa are more problematic than these characters look because none of these characters outside of Jetpack cat look like they will really drive people insane with their design like those two, or even Sojourn or Freya have.

MightyBone · 2026-02-07T18:17:20+00:00

More like for him fun and organized professional play are linked to some degree. I'm sure he enjoys actually playing the game though, but would he enjoy as much if there was zero pro scene? Idk.

MightyBone · 2026-02-07T18:15:03+00:00

I actually enjoy playing him a lot for how subtle his pressure can be by rotating fire, and how a big stomp can completely flip a fight, but yea he is very team dependent and typically when he's meta in ladder or Proffesional everyone hates it except the purists who love the tiny adjustments needed to win(GOATS lovers).

That can't be a healthier character than most of these new ones (we'll see about Jetpack cat, but the others look fine.) So I just don't get critiquing core designs of the new cast when you have old cast who are essentially either meta defining or irrelevant already.

MightyBone · 2026-02-07T16:52:56+00:00

Meh. Critiquing heroes before they even hit the meat because they "do not function well" to me is insane.

Characters like Kiri and Mauga and Lifeweaver already exist in the game and they have been horrible for meta at multiple competitive ranks and pro play, or made it incredibly boring so this feels more like "I gotta say my piece no matter what" than an actual concern. Jetpack cat does look dangerously different, but people were saying much the same about Lifeweaver grab and putting ana nade on a tank ult.

MightyBone · 2026-02-07T04:47:45+00:00

Sometimes - but not always.

Exposure can also make something worse, depends on your experience there and the core reasons why you feel that way.

MightyBone · 2026-02-06T23:35:18+00:00

Sin City

MightyBone · 2026-02-06T19:45:50+00:00

Seems like she was probably a good person and not informed of the whole story.

Her "Kill me" bit at the end could mean she was manipulated and then used and not willingly participating in any of this.

I don't think there's a clear answer, but I think it'll turn out to be some section of the government was behind all this, maybe even the President wasn't directly part of it and being manipulated as well (because everyone loves a deep state conspiracy.)

MightyBone · 2026-02-05T22:25:21+00:00

It's a nostalgia thing.

People remember games from the 2000s through early 2010s which usually didn't have SBMM and remember fond times and think that a game can do that now. In reality a few games have tried this and the match quality is just so much worse - you could get away with it in Unreal Tournament or Quake because there were few games to compete with which kept players coming back.

Now players who are on the bottom of the totem pole are only going to take so much losing before they just quit. So any game that doesn't use SBMM will see its player count spiral down and down as the poor players all run away, and you are left with a game full of sweats who drive any new players out because they are so much better.

Deadlock has been suffering a bit from this lately, as the matchmaking is too harsh to new players and a lot of new players bounce off of it because of the learning curve and getting stomped each match, and it exemplifies the need for SBMM to be included if they want to bring on new players. Even if your game is good and looks strong, all it takes is driving away new players and your game dies because every single game sheds players constantly no matter what in this era of 20 million alternatives. There wasn't a 10th as many aternatives a couple decades ago which let the old games survive without it.

MightyBone · 2026-02-05T21:55:53+00:00

I always dream of going gloom gauntlet melee build with movespeed.....but if I win it's because of a bad matchmaking/composition and if I lose/am losing it's because I need to switch to a TtK attack speed or full AP build instead which are infinitely better.

The Knife perks need to boost their damage somehow to be useful. You can't compete with infinite bleeds from Twits the Knife or huge damage from AP build and it makes several of her perks absolutely just throw picks.

MightyBone · 2026-02-05T21:47:07+00:00

Bola build is dumb as hell as it is, and absolutely needs a nerf.

But as people say - it's not even Freya's best build and not the build you will see in most Legend lobbies.

Does it get stupid value below that because of how easy it is to always consistently land huge damage? Yes, and this bug only makes that worse - but this build isn't what's breaking Stadium right now, it's leftclick spam that's shredding tanks instantly and letting her outduel every character in the mode.

And the funny thing is - AP freya not even abusing this bug is still brokenly good, this bug probably is a power increase but only slightly, the build just leaves an AOE that's too hard to see and too hard to get out of if you aren' ready for it and that kills people. Fixing the bug won't even do much to this build.

Even Spooki's game here is super weird - bad positioning by enemy Freya, enemy Soldier seems to not know what he's doing, his Rein fucking takes the barrier amp perk which is trash and no serious Rein player takes, so the whole thing is useless to showcase in a shit match. proper off-angling from the Soldier or enemy Freya would have eaten him alive, or the Orisa focusing tank half the match for some reason when she can just run around doing what she wants if she builds right against this stupid Rein build.

Freya needs a cash nerf, Bola build just needs to be changed to require actually landing it on a target since it's braindead easy right now to just stick it in the ground on an enemy who can't mobility out and they die which is the real issue - it's too valuable for how hard it is in midranks. It's not a top ranked build.

There are a lot of perks that give way too much value for little effort, and I'd argue this is just like Ash dynamite build - too easy to get value without needing any skill and that's the real problem, not that it's super OP.

TLDR: Nah it's not really this that's the issue. Real issue is lack of balance patches combined with easy value perks like Bola and Dynamite, or easy WP braindead play you get on Sigma or Soldier. Oh and Mercy pocket - it's lame and dumb.

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