Baldur's Gate 3 publishing lead urges optimism as devs defend Highguard's launch

Michael ‘Cromwelp’ Douse, publishing director for Baldur’s Gate 3, said “game development runs on optimism” as fellow developers came to the defense of Highguard following a messy launch that drew “Mostly Negative” Steam reviews within hours. Larian Studios director Swen Vincke said he doesn’t “like people s***ing on things,” arguing “it’s easy to destroy things, it’s a lot harder to build them,” and Remedy communications director Thomas Puha tweeted he was “tired of seeing headlines of how many players Highguard has lost,” calling out what he saw as a celebration of a game doing badly.

Douse recalled trying “to see eye to eye” with an executive audience at the DICE Summit and warned that while mistakes happen, “the faces behind them” are also the reason for successes. “It is easy to celebrate failure because there's security in feeling right, but I hope everyone finds enough to cling onto to break that cycle of cynicism,” he wrote.

highguard reviews, highguard steam reviews, highguard launch, highguard first big patch, wildlight entertainment highguard, michael cromwelp douse, michael douse optimism, swen vincke quote, larian studios, thomas puha, remedy entertainment, alan wake 2, mostly negative reviews, mostly positive filter, reviews by playtime, three hours filter, dice summit remarks, developer defense, listening to feedback, player loss headlines, game development optimism, launch backlash, patch fixes, community reactions