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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteHighguard developer Josh Sobel publicly tied part of the game’s failure to online criticism, including negative reviews and memes, and then qualified that position in a later statement. The original post has been deleted, so what readers can verify comes from a Notebookcheck report and a user-posted Steam Community reproduction of the later statement. Highguard is a free-to-play hero shooter with 3v3 combat.
What Sobel posted
On February 17, 2026, Notebookcheck’s Rahim Amir Noorali reported on a lengthy X thread by Sobel titled “Reflecting on shipping my first game (Highguard).” According to that report, the thread covered the studio’s confidence before the game’s reveal, the response to the trailer and to the game’s placement at The Game Awards, memes such as “Concord 2” and “Titanfall 3 died for this,” and negative reviews. Notebookcheck describes the post as now deleted.
The framing drew criticism. Notebookcheck specifically cites streamer Asmongold among those who objected. The same report does not measure how widespread that criticism was, so it should be read as a description of notable reactions rather than a survey of players or creators.
The “14k review bombs” claim
The figure most often repeated from the thread is Sobel’s statement of “over 14k review bombs.” Notebookcheck quotes him on it, and the Steam Community reproduction includes the same claim. Neither source independently verifies the count, whether those reviews fit the “review bomb” label, or why the reviewers posted them. Sobel reportedly described these reviewers as having less than an hour of playtime, some of whom had not finished the tutorial. That description is also his own.
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| Claim | Who made it and where it appears | Verification status |
|---|---|---|
| More than 14,000 “review bombs” | Sobel, quoted by Notebookcheck (February 17, 2026) and reproduced in a Steam Community discussion | Attributed claim. No independent count found in either source. |
| Reviewers had under one hour of playtime, and some had not finished the tutorial | Sobel, as reported by Notebookcheck and reproduced in the Steam Community discussion | Attributed claim. Not independently checked. |
| The reviews were a coordinated “review bomb” campaign | Sobel’s characterization | Not established by the reporting. |
| Online discourse “played a role” in the game’s failure | Sobel, in the reproduced thread | The developer’s own assessment. The sources do not measure its effect. |
The later qualification
A Steam Community discussion reproduces a later statement attributed to Sobel. It says his now-deleted tweet after the Highguard layoff news “was a mistake.” It also says online discourse “may have accelerated the timeline of our failure beyond the natural outcome of reasonable critique,” but that it “wasn’t the primary cause.”
The two positions do not sit easily together. The original thread said the negative discourse “absolutely played a role” and claimed that “the consumers put absurd amounts of effort into slandering Highguard. And it worked.” The later reproduced statement narrows that to timing rather than cause. Readers should weigh both as Sobel’s words, as reproduced in these two sources, and not as a settled account of why the game struggled.
Why the reaction was so sharp
Much of the criticism appears to have been aimed at the attribution itself. A developer blaming players for a commercial outcome is a familiar flashpoint, and the specific memes Sobel referenced (“Concord 2” and “Titanfall 3 died for this”) pointed to earlier games whose failures were also discussed online. Sobel’s argument also rested on a count of reviews that the public cannot check. Critics could respond to the framing without disputing the number, which is part of why the thread drew attention beyond the game’s own community.
These are observations about the discussion, not findings about its causes. The sources do not show how many people shared each view.
The shutdown timeline
The same Steam Community discussion reproduces a shutdown notice. It says the team had not built a sustainable player base to support Highguard long term, and that servers would remain online until March 12, 2026. The thread gives the game’s run as January 26 to March 12, 2026. The notice circulates in a user-posted reproduction rather than a linked official channel, so its wording should be treated as reported. This article does not confirm the game’s status after that date.
What is and is not established
- Established by Notebookcheck: Sobel posted a lengthy thread about Highguard’s reception, criticized memes and reviews, and that post is now deleted.
- Established by the reproduced statement: Sobel called the deleted tweet a mistake and said online discourse was not the primary cause of the game’s failure.
- Attributed only: the figure of more than 14,000 review bombs, the claim about reviewers’ playtime, and the statement that discourse “played a role.”
- Not established: whether the reviews were coordinated, whether they were review bombs under any standard, the reviewers’ motives, or a single cause for the game’s failure.
Readers who want to follow the story should start with the Notebookcheck report and treat the Steam Community reproduction as the only available text of the later statement.
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