A new report from Bloomberg demystified some of the decisions made by Wildlight Entertainment's leadership, the developer of the failed hero shooter Highguard.
According to the report, many of the questionable decisions made by Wildlight in relation to playtesting, marketing and release timing were made in the context of the success of Apex Legends, an overnight live-service juggernaut that many of the developers at Wildlight contributed to while working at Respawn Entertainment.
Apex Legends was announced and released at the same time, a practice that became known as "shadowdropping." The combination of Titanfall's fluid movement mechanics with the up-and-coming battle royale genre made Apex Legends an overnight hit. This success—and the millions generated for Electronic Arts—drove some of the game's developers to leave Respawn and found Wildlight with a profit-sharing incentive that ensured everyone who worked on Highguard would reap the rewards.
However, in some respects, Wildlight was blinded by the success of Apex Legends. The studio's leadership was too concerned with keeping the project a secret to try to recreate the conditions under which Apex was released, and, as such, never held any public playtests where the community could get their hands on the game...
