Highguard - Concord 2.0?

[LiquidKid]

You know, when I hear “death of a game,” I would think that a game isn’t playable online due to low population or server closures. However, the game would still accessible in some way for local usage.

Now, thanks to live service models, games can die and vanish at any time. No archive anywhere aside from videos or passing memories before people just move on to something else.

Lawbreakers, Battleborn, The Culling II, The Crew 1, Evolve, whatever that Amazon based game was, Concord, now Highguard. They used to “exist,” now they’re only remembered for being failures of a risky, anti consumer model that creates more problems than they’re worth. Highguard died before it even launched; hell, I’d argue that it was just in life support at best.

I know this guy personally, he constantly gets in arguments about the title of his show because he covers games that aren’t actually dead a lot.
He also gets really really autistic about calling something an MMO when it’s just an MO or an ORPG, something even devs and publishers don’t care about.

Cool enough guy when chatting with him, but he takes criticism very poorly

 

[Progtopher]

To be honest, after learning about this game recently, it was bound to fail from the start, it was already drowned in an ocean of games like Overwatch and shit.

 

[Snake of Diamond]

It's not enough anymore to just be "Like that previous game.... BUT WITH BETTER GRAPHICS!" because that's not working anymore, casual gamers do not have the attention span to care beyond 3 weeks and hardcore gamers want something with a lot of content to get their teeth into, if they don't have that they simply jump ship. You really do have to provide something in terms of gameplay to bring spice to what you're offering and stand apart from the competition, this is why the Indie market has seen better success in some areas than Triple A as Triple A is adverse to innovation and experimentation due to the amount of money and manhours they throw at absolutely everything they produce. I will say, the 'On surface' idea of Highguard does sound relatively interesting with a seriously poor implementation behind it, I think the biggest question everyone had was "Why only two very small teams on huge maps?" To my understanding it was 6~ players on a map the size of a Battlefield map which is insane. The solution which would've been cool but unwieldly would be "Same map size, bigger teams", but given how even having anything beyond 4v4 means noone can work together you might've been better off with "Smaller maps" or "More teams on the map" to make gameplay better.

This is what happens when the bottom line is treat the average joe like they're stupid and will cluelessly stumble into your game and are expected to love it unconditionally. Like I said the average person will see these games and think about is it worth their time but even if they do have that time to play it like you said there is nothing stopping them form asking obvious questions the gamers are asking. The industry's whole problem is based on stupid people because the products are getting worse and thrown out the doors completely unfinished and unrefined so the suckers can get on it early and become the harden defenders only in Highgaurd's case everyone on all fronts saw the signs and it was a waste of their time. This game died out naturally because in ever facet it was uninteresting to everyone but people in the industry think everything they make deserves their chance like people don't have the freewill to just say something doesn't look appealing.

 

[Astro Galactic Megalul]

I'd like to see dustbornlikes included as well (dustborn, 1348 ex voto, and relooted). No need to go in-depth on them because they lack the massive shilling force of blast havers, but they still share the culture war aspect of concordlikes.

Dustborn and Relooted also have investment from woke government programs, they're literally made for the purpose of propaganda. That's what makes a dustbornlike IMO, that and unbelievable amount of cringe as well as complete lack of self-awareness.

 

[FILTH Tourist]

Didn't cp2077 launch the way it did because the qa company they hired fucked around rather than doing actual work?

CP2077 had a lot more issues than bugs. IMO just wasn't a very good RPG mechanics wise with bland perks, basic cybernetics, simple combat and I kept bouncing off of it. If it came out bug free people would just say it is "ok". It took several overhaul updates over years to refine the combat, add meaningful perks and cyberware to create interesting builds and just get everything working right.

 

[Disc]

Hyenas.

I'll include an honourable mentions/historical examples section, maybe.

I'd like to see dustbornlikes included as well (dustborn, 1348 ex voto, and relooted). No need to go in-depth on them because they lack the massive shilling force of blast havers, but they still share the culture war aspect of concordlikes.

Well, I'm not so sure about that. Dustbornies have some traits of Concordlikes, but they feel like a distinct stream.

I think a way I'd put it is that without the corporate ignorance, you wouldn't get Concordlikes, and without the political pandering, you wouldn't get Dustbornies - but the other could survive without that trait. They are similar and have some overlap, but they're distinct enough to be handled seperately, maybe in a second megathread. I'll give them an honourable mention, though.

 

[din365]

CP2077 had a lot more issues than bugs. IMO just wasn't a very good RPG mechanics wise with bland perks, basic cybernetics, simple combat and I kept bouncing off of it. If it came out bug free people would just say it is "ok". It took several overhaul updates over years to refine the combat, add meaningful perks and cyberware to create interesting builds and just get everything working right.

thats the thing about cd projekt red. they always seem to release a lot of stuff that is janky as fuck at first, then just patch it later. the same thing happened to the witcher 3 as well when it came out with a game-breaking bug that happens before you even get out of the opening cenematic. in the end once they patch it, the game is actually good.

but in recent years, even that studio has been invaded by vibe-coding bluehairs that want to push DEI. They even wanted to uglify ciri for the next game and got backlash for that to the point hey had to backpedal. i don't have high hopes for them in the future, and will probably be yet another studio that will be bought up once it hemorrhages cash from pushing slop.

 

[Adolf Kotler]

When are game devs and publishers going to finally accept that gamers don't want this kind of slop?

I'm aware that games like this are much easier (and likely cheaper) to make than traditional story driven, single player, campaign based games, but when done right they piss all over multiplayer online looter shooters. I blame fucking Fortnite...

 

[Tactical Wizard]

After Dustborn, whenever I see a project like that or relooted I wonder how my tax dollars were used to fund it. Dustborn is by a Norwegian studio and Norway very badly wants to have a video game industry and so they subsidize this trash and these studios can essentially burn tax payer money forever. There was also some USAID money in there as well.

And it’s a damn shame, too. This is the best time to be a small studio with an agile team. Helldivers 2? Small team of fifty who’d previously made an isometric shooter. Marathon? Arc Raiders is about to drink their milkshake.

I would like to amend my previous statement. Marathon got mogged right out of the gate by Slay the Spire 2 which is simultaneously less surprising and more embarrassing.

 

[Kane Lives]

When are game devs and publishers going to finally accept that gamers don't want this kind of slop?

They won't. They're chasing the dragon of a permanent income stream from fully monetized MTX, and potential low costs of running a successful GAAS.

Retards. They should have pivoted to gachas if they wanted that sort.

 

[Sargon's wife's son]

All of the people, definitely not 100 percent paid SHIELD game views. We're saying the usual. It's an over saturated market. Somehow Marvel rivals can be successful. Seriously. Woke idiots.

 

[Begemot]

When are game devs and publishers going to finally accept that gamers don't want this kind of slop?

I'm aware that games like this are much easier (and likely cheaper) to make than traditional story driven, single player, campaign based games, but when done right they piss all over multiplayer online looter shooters. I blame fucking Fortnite...

Nah, us real gamers will keep on playing Highguard until it stops. It's not our fault you traitors hate actual indie games.

 

[Swine Schwein]

Nah, us real gamers will keep on playing Highguard until it stops

I'm gonna go cry to my AI boyfriend when I can no longer log in

His name is Hank. Hank Hi-G. He raps about genital hygiene and shitty 3v3 video games that look like retarded cartoons

Anyway, see you tonight, if I can find a match. Guard up!

 

[Begemot]

I'm gonna go cry to my AI boyfriend when I can no longer log in

His name is Hank. Hank Hi-G. He raps about genital hygiene and shitty 3v3 video games that look like retarded cartoons

Anyway, see you tonight, if I can find a match. Guard up!

Hell yeah! I just have to make sure my girlfriend's 'friend' isn't using my computer tonight. I'm just popping out to get him a new pack of Newports.

 

[Voloromir of bad Yuristan]

They should have pivoted to gachas if they wanted that sort

It's funny seeing these people try to nickel and dime every cent from people, but somehow they draw the line at cute women and men, that's just a complete no no for them.
At the end of the day, even for making gacha games you have to be somewhat talented enough, you can't just spout a half assed minimum viable product and expect money to start rolling down, this is quite literally why people are already saying arknights endfiield will be EOS soon because it barely had content on release and the story and cinematics are just bad, characters barely move their lips during conversations and they don't make any facial expressions whatsoever, and the girls are just mediocre at best.
If we look at how most western developers are releasing games nowadays, it wouldn't be weird to see most of these games not even last more than two or three months in the market.

 

[Disc]

I might try drafting something up. We’ll see what happens.

It's finally out - come join me by the bonfire.

Thread 'The Concordverse - Highguard, Marathon, Horizon Hunter's Gathering and other Flopbusters'

Mar 7, 2026

In recent years, a collection of games have been getting a certain label attached to them - the label of Concordlike. This megathread is to collate all the Concordlikes of past, present and future, as well as discuss the underlying causes that lead to them - and, in the future, whether any given game actually counts or not.

What is Concord?
The original Concord was a live service multiplayer hero shooter developed by Firewalk Studios and published by Sony. Having been concepted in the wake of Overwatch's release, Firewalk studios had gathered industry vets from...

• Disc

Reactions: x 102 x 22 x 17 x 12 x 2 x 1 x 1

 

[Tanner Glass]

This is probably why the industry is panicking so much about the "Stop Killing Games" movement. They're currently sitting on 10 or 20 shitty megagames that have no offline component and don't want to allocate the extra resources to setting up a dedicated server system or single player mode.

Stop Killing Games doesn't have this expectation - the expectation is literally "do not bring an active lawsuit if someone sets up a dedicated server in the own time and on their own dime"

When are game devs and publishers going to finally accept that gamers don't want this kind of slop?

I'm aware that games like this are much easier (and likely cheaper) to make than traditional story driven, single player, campaign based games, but when done right they piss all over multiplayer online looter shooters. I blame fucking Fortnite...

Sadly there's a large segment of the population that does - there's a gigantic market for <Popular Game> but <Different> and some of those games print money to this day.

There's no Valorant without Counter-Strike, no League without DOTA, no Marvel Rivals/Overwatch without TF2, and so on. It's a formula that works so companies are always going to chase it.

 

[Smithfield Ham]

Stop Killing Games doesn't have this expectation - the expectation is literally "do not bring an active lawsuit if someone sets up a dedicated server in the own time and on their own dime"

Which shitty megacorps absolutely do not want because they want to be able to completely erase a game from memory if it embarrasses them, or create forced obscurity so you can never play it again unless they sell an overpriced remaster.

 

[Thiletonomics]

Which shitty megacorps absolutely do not want because they want to be able to completely erase a game from memory if it embarrasses them, or create forced obscurity so you can never play it again unless they sell an overpriced remaster.

Also, they want to erase those games for tax write-off purposes, as Sony DMCA'd people for trying to run Concord private servers.

 

[Smithfield Ham]

Also, they want to erase those games for tax write-off purposes, as Sony DMCA'd people for trying to run Concord private servers.

Is that even how it works? If you write a game off as a failure and take down the official servers, will the government really say "yeah but some dude in his underwear from Boise Idaho is running a private server you don't make money off of, so technically the failure isn't enough for a write off!"

The way creative media is written off in the tax code is something that's always baffled me because it makes no goddamn sense and there isn't anything comparable to it.