Geoff Keighley shouldn't be blamed for Highguard's failure, Larian publishing boss says: 'There are genuine villains in this industry but I just don't see them here'

It's been a hell of a ride for Highguard, in all the wrong ways, and it crossed an ugly milestone last night when developer Wildlight Entertainment laid off "most of the staff" just 16 days after the game's release.

Doubtless, there are plenty of reasons for Highguard's failure to catch fire: Morgan Park probably nailed the core problem in his 65% review, declaring the game "is simply fine," which simply isn't good enough these days. But quite a few people on social media have been pointing fingers at the man who got the Highguard ball rolling just a couple months ago: Game Awards host Geoff Keighley.

Keighley, you'll recall, revealed Highguard to the world as the "just one more thing" at the 2025 Game Awards with a trailer that didn't exactly knock everyone's socks off. It was fine (in hindsight, we seem to use that word a lot when talking about Highguard) but a lot of folks wondered why it deserved the big TGAs closing spot—and, now that Highguard is floundering, some are suggesting that Keighley put unreasonable expectations on the game that contributed to its downfall.

One person who clearly and vocally does not share that position is Larian publishing director Michael Douse, who suggested in a message on X that people pinning any of the blame for Highguard's downfall on Keighley are off-base.

"The Highguard layoffs, like many others, are a sad reminder of the economic instability of an industry that asks the world but promises little," Douse wrote. "That said, blaming one man for showing a trailer on his telly show is a sophomoric take that shows little understanding of industry!"

In a reply further down the thread, he added, "I don't think even a minority of players who went on to play the game did so because [Keighley] said it was groundbreaking, but they did go on to give it a shot because they showed it. Ultimately they didn't like it because of what it was."

It's a point Douse makes a few times in the thread: All else aside, Keighley put Highguard in front of exponentially more eyes than would have seen it otherwise. Does Highguard launch with almost 100,000 concurrent players if it shadowdrops with absolutely no buildup? Probably not. Would players be more likely to forgive its shortcomings if Keighley hadn't hyped it up so much? Again, I think that's very unlikely.

As for why Wildlight decided to make a game like Highguard, which has been criticized for being derivative and lacking its own identity, in the first place, Douse said one major challenge facing developers is that "nobody knows what the fuck the world wants. If you don't already have an audience, you are genuinely throwing money into a void." Sometimes you come up with an Arc Raiders (or perhaps a Baldur's Gate 3), but more often than not, you don't.

"Maybe they just made the game they wanted to make," he wrote. "I don't KNOW but the idea that there are villains is just so weird to me. There are genuine villains in this industry but I just don't see them here."

In his own post following the Wildlight layoffs, Keighley called the cuts "an unfortunate, brutal, and sad outcome for a game I enjoyed in early playtest."