There was speculation that high guardthe upcoming heroic shooter from the Apex Legends and Titanfall veteran, must have paid big bucks for the finale slot at The Game Awards. This made it the most attention-grabbing debut at this year’s biggest gaming showcase. And it backfired. The game’s reveal wasn’t well-received, and it ended in a strange way, as spots at The Game Awards are usually reserved for highly anticipated games and big surprises.

Now, two separate sources tell me, High Guard didn’t have to pay at all for that coveted spot. Reportedly, showrunner Jeff Keathley liked the game so much that he offered it to them. There’s some speculation that another game slipped out of the spot and left a hole, but I can’t confirm that. The revelation that Highgard didn’t have to pay for the spot was previously reported. imran khannow we can corroborate it.

Following this news, I’ve seen a lot of criticism of Geoff Keighley and I don’t think it’s justified. There are stories that he “sent the game to death” and somehow ruined it. It’s clear that this ultimately wasn’t a good decision for either party, but if anything, Keighley was just trying to help the game he loves. There is almost no malicious intent. In the end, it was up to Highguard developer Wildlight to decide if they wanted to be a part of it, but clearly they believe in their game and it would be kind of crazy to turn them down.

Hygard announced a release date of January 26, 2026, with just over a week left, and has not done any additional marketing, not even tweets. I recently learned that there was a big preview event for this game. The coverage will definitely start next week. But starting the actual marketing campaign a week before release is a choice. Especially if you want to preview characters, modes, etc. to change your initial feeling and better explain what the game is really like.

Highguard at least has the advantage of being free to play, so there’s no obligation to try it out. The concept of the game appears to be a “raid” based shooter where the objective is to move forward to capture territory, but it seems to be very different from 5v5 arena games and other extraction shooters. But unfortunately, in the trailer at least look Hero shooter fatigue is real unless you’re using the entire roster of Marvel characters, for example.

At this point, there is no guarantee that High Guard will succeed or fail, or be good or bad. There are too many things I don’t know. Sure, that doesn’t seem to bode well after releasing a widely criticized trailer and saving all the marketing for a few days before launch, but no, the idea that they blew their entire budget on a spot at The Game Awards isn’t true. We’ve reached out to Wildlight for comment and will update if we hear back.

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