Internet Not Convinced It Should Care About Another Pvp Hero...

Geoff Keighley went hard on the hype for Highguard, but it wasn't very convincing.

The Game Awards ended on an odd note last night. Instead of a big, exclamation-point 'one more thing!'—the prophesied return of Gabe Newell, striding onto center stage with three fingers held high—host Geoff Keighley closed the show with a reveal of a brand new game from an unknown studio: A PvP raid shooter called Highguard.

Which isn't to say Highguard wasn't hyped up to infinity before the trailer dropped. After a stage-spanning flight across stormy seas and rocky shores, Keighley did what he does and put the pedal to the metal with both feet.

"Sometimes our last reveal at the Game Awards is a teaser for something years and years away. But not tonight," Keighley pronounced with dramatic purpose. "Our final world premiere comes from 61 members of the team that built Apex Legends and Titanfall. Four years ago, the principals founded a new independent studio with the hopes of pushing the shooter genre forward with a new original game. They've done it in complete secrecy, which is even more amazing because the game is very deep into development.

"The power of independent, self-published studios to push this medium forward is a growing, and I think, positive theme in our industry. And so tonight, you're not only going to get the announcement of the game, but also your first look at the gameplay. I've played it, and after you see this trailer, I think you're going to want to as well. Welcome to Highguard."

It was a big sell, and the Wildlight team does indeed come to the table with some notable work under their belts, including design, art, and programming credits on games including Titanfall, Apex Legends, and various Call of Duty games, among various others.

But the trailer itself? For me, it was one of the least impressive reveals of the night. Nothing about it stands out from the horde of other team-based PvP shooters currently at hand: The ghost horse thing was passingly cool but let's be honest, that's just a Destiny sparrow with legs. The Highguard characters themselves, meanwhile, look like they have all the personality of a space heater, and dialog like "Your light belongs to me" and "I am the coming storm" leaves me with nothing but a deep desire to re-enact the famous Seinfeld leaving GIF.

It's not that Highguard looks bad, really, it just looks extremely, "So what?" And it's not just the trailer, the Steam page is equally devoid of anything that might make me

Source: PC Gamer