Game Awards 2025 Show Close with Widely Criticized 'Highguard' Announcement
With a surprise and disappointment for some viewers, the Game Awards 2025 ceremony ended. The last reveal of the night was presented by host Geoff Keighley as something resembling a major announcement-the free-to-play PvP shooter Highguard. Audience reception vastly turned negative.
A Huge Build-Up Followed by a Letdown
Keighley created considerable expectancy by declaring that it was "the most important game he's ever announced on stage," remarking about how it surprised him that the project had not been leaked. The game was Highguard, from the former developers of Apex Legends, and certainly looks quite a bit like the recently doomed shooter Concord.
The community responded almost instantaneously. On the official The Game Awards YouTube channel, the trailer had a ridiculously low like-to-dislike ratio of about 429 to 3,500, which means within minutes it was manually disliked by the community.
Highlights from the Community Reactions Reflect Disappointment
The announcement video comments voiced audience disappointment in many aspects regarding the game itself and the tremendous hype leading up to this reveal. Common sentiments include:
- One user sarcastically remarked, "No wonder no one leaked it."
- Another pointed toward the generic-sounding title, "High = Over. Guard = Watch. Seriously."
- Many referred to it as a "typical hero shooter" as one viewer commented on how Keighley seems to over-hype things.
- One user directly labelled it to be the "spiritual successor to Concord."
- Another popular theme was disappointment, with one fan stating, "What a punch in the gut; I was looking forward to this being Titanfall 3..."
- The budget for the development was also something that started generating ridicule, with one comment stating that the studio "blew the whole game's budget so Keighley could hype this piece of crap."
Another New Shooter on the Road to Hell
The above concern is exacerbated by the fact that Highguard is only in the early days of development. Its creators are now stepping into the market where similar live-service PvP shooters have recently been failing one after another. But this stage at least gives time to the development team to learn from the recent market history and backlash.
