Highguard's already a failure (Pt. I)

2026-01-14 15:09:43

        Highguard's trailer was already a failure from the moment they launched it. No one wants a hero shooter anymore and with Overwatch on the way down, Marvel Rivals cruising, and a litany of failed hero shooters in the past, Highguard was an ill-advised endeavor from the beginning.

What I want to focus on today though are the parts in the trailer that really made the trailer feel bad. First let's start with the opening of the trailer.

Starting off strong, we get "insert generic dialogue about dangers untold"...not the best way to kick off what you will later call a "new breed of shooter" guys.

For those following at home, at 00:11 into the video, our, presumably, titular Highguard-kun starts running toward a ledge. The animation here is what gets me. As he gets closer to the ledge, his legs start coming together in less of a stride and more of a, oh crap where's the bathroom. His arms start flailing around and just kinda...womp womps off the side of the building instead of an actual heroic jump. As he's falling, his legs are stiff and it doesn't evoke any kind of control. It's meant to evoke a sense of "Oh no! Why did he do this if he has no plan?! What was he thinking?!" I bring this up because right after this animation plays, Deus-Ex Epona appears out of nowhere and saves Highguard-kun...which means this entire time, he knew he was never in any danger and it was all planned...so why did he act out of control in the first place?

Moving on...right after Epona "saves" him at 00:18 he lands, the music swells, what awesome thing is going to happen ne...oh...a gun...sure, why not. He just pulls out a machine gun...thing. Burst fires, hit markers to tell us the audience that this farce is epic, then throws a lance and kills another person just standing in the open field. The "opponents" are showing the visuals of shooting but the bullet tracers normally seen as player feedback aren't being shown so instead of looking like a life and death fight, they just look impotent...not even trying to track the target or anything, just shooting into the distance. We're not even 20 seconds into this trailer and I'm already feeling like the game isn't going to play smoothly. I feel like it's a bit strange to know that I'm going to have to sheath my electric lance thing so I have two hands to reload my AK-47 Burstomatic.

The time is now 00:24 and our hero has apparently gotten off Epona...which is odd because there was no animation for it...There's a single frame where the horse turns blue and disappears but no reaction from our character aside from a lowering of his movement speed. Generally, in games, when one dismounts something they are riding on, there's a little hop, or lateral motion, perhaps even a touch of a twist as the leg goes up and over the saddle. Even in first person, they would still generally put this little animation in to give some feedback to the player.

At 00:28 we get Highguard-kun taking the butt end of an Ax out of nowhere, throws it at another nondescript target shooting at nothing in particular God of War style, then pulls out yet ANOTHER gun, this time a fully automatic, and kills the person immediately in front of them. This NPC is shooting...again at nothing...are these guys my squad in X-COM 2? "Aww c'mon Jenkins! You had a 95% hit chance! How did you miss EVERY SINGLE BULLET?!".

*ahem*

Sorry...getting off track.

Then this part of the trailer wraps up at about 00:28 with Highguard-kun pulling the Leviathan ax back and stabbing the butt end into a red orb and breaking it. First off, Highguard-kun...do you know how to use an ax? That's not the sharp end. Now, sure, sometimes weapons like this would actually have a pointy end on the opposite side for exactly this purpose. I paused the video at 00:26 and some frames (I'm not in my video editor so I can't tell you exactly what frame it is) and it clearly shows the butt end of this ax...and would you believe it, it's not pointy at all...just a cloth covered piece of wood. 

Are we supposed to know what's going on here? Did they assume we'd just know why our characters is carrying so many different weapons, what the red orbs mean, a "trust us bro" of the game feeling disjointed and sluggish?

We're 30 seconds into this video and I'm already sick of it.