The legendary writer of Half-Life, Portal, and Left 4 Dead has found himself in the middle of a controversy after he called out gamers for celebrating Highguard getting shut down. Posts about his quotes got swamped by users on social media, ensuing debates.
Wildlight Entertainment’s Highguard got absolutely shot down by gamers ever since its first reveal back in last year’s Game Awards. Now it’s on its way to being completely shut down in a matter of days. A news that has been met with a severely positive reception.
The source of this quotation comes from TikTok, as Chet Faliszek decided to indulge in pushing back against hate campaigns online for any big releases. There have been several examples of this over recent times, but he specifically chose to talk about Highguard.
Gamers online are celebrating the downfall of Highguard
Gamers online had been boiling with frustrations for a while because studios are heavily leaning on the same kind of AAA live service multiplayer action titles, which is slowly starting to saturate the market.
It reached a climactic point with the release of PlayStation’s live service title Concord in 2024, which was heavily criticized for its art style and visual identity. When the game eventually shut down because of negative receptions, the moment was celebrated among online communities.
These sentiments have still stayed with the community and found a new target, which is Wildlight Entertainment’s Highguard. The studio recently saw massive layoffs, and the game is finally shutting down in less than 50 days after its release.
Several users online are making fun of this downfall, even going as far as to call out Geoff Keighley on social media. Host of the Game Awards Show for hyping up the game and being partially the reason for it failing.
Chet Faliszek vs gamers on social media
Chet Faliszek shot back at these reactions online, saying, “I’m really sick of it.” He goes on to criticize how gamers are mad that developers are creating games that they themselves like and “it’s not the latest trend.”
He went on to further say, “You hate games, just say you hate games. And I know what you’re gonna tell me, ‘Last game I played was Half-Life: Opposing Force‘ cause I’m a real gamer or whatever.”
Naturally, the community of users to whom these words were directed at have not taken it lightly. On social media like X/Twitter, they went on to shoot back at the criticisms with memes as well as hate-filled messages.
There has also been a surprisingly good number of users who came forward in agreement with Chet Faliszek. Criticizing the culture of gamers hating on developers and celebrating whenever they lose their jobs.
The hate campaigns do not seem to be stopping just yet. Just like how Highguard was made fun of, with people calling it Concord 2 and wishing for it to fail. The next target seems to be Bungie’s Marathon, which would be a tough fight for these so-called gamers.
