Why so Toxic Bruh?
It happens like clockwork. A new shooter gets announced, the trailer drops, and the gaming community collectively sighs. We saw it happen with Concord, we saw it with Splitgate 2, and now we are watching it happen in real time with Highguard. Players can usually tell within seconds if a game has a soul or if it is just another generic product destined for the bargain bin. Yet, there is a strange phenomenon where major gaming websites seem puzzled by these failures. They act as if the lack of interest is a mystery rather than an obvious consequence of bad design.
This disconnect highlights a growing issue in the industry which many are calling toxic positivity. It is a refusal to call a spade a spade. Instead of offering honest critiques, many journalists seem afraid to speak out against major publishers for fear of losing access. This creates a feedback loop where bad ideas are praised until launch day, leaving developers confused when their game inevitably crashes and burns.
The Concord Effect
Highguard appears to be the latest victim of this trend. It is a free to play first person shooter that is supposedly weeks away from release, yet there is zero hype surrounding it. The visuals lack identity, looking like a mix of every other hero shooter on the market without bringing anything new to the table. It feels like Concord 2.0, but is it? Maybe its Concord minus 1 for all that we know.
We all remember the Concord disaster. Sony poured hundreds of millions into a game that felt like a worse version of Overwatch. Despite the obvious lack of public interest during the beta, the industry insiders and journalists maintained a facade of positivity. They ignored the generic character designs and the lack of innovation. When the game was shut down mere weeks after launch, nobody was surprised except perhaps the developers who had been shielded from honest feedback by this bubble of toxic positivity.
Passion vs. Corporate Greed
This issue goes deeper than just bad game reviews. It strikes at the heart of what video games are supposed to be. Recently, Thomas Mahler, the CEO of Moon Studios and creator of No Rest for the Wicked, got into a public disagreement with Mike Ybarra, the former President of Blizzard. Mahler argued that executives like Ybarra have ruined the integrity of AAA gaming by treating games as vehicles for microtransactions and jackpot machines for whales rather than works of art.
Mahler is right. Franchises like Diablo used to define the genre. Diablo II is still considered a watershed moment in ARPG history. Compare that to the reception of Diablo IV, a game that technically has more content but lacks the soul of its predecessors. It was designed to hit financial targets, not to resonate with players. Yet, when Mahler pointed this out, outlets like PC Gamer ran hit pieces on him rather than acknowledging the validity of his criticism.
It is strange to see journalism outlets running defense for corporate executives who push $65 horse skins while attacking independent developers who are actually trying to innovate. They label valid criticism as “toxicity” to dismiss it, aiming to delegitimize anyone who steps out of line. It seems they would rather protect their relationships with big publishers than stand up for the consumer.
The Shift to Authenticity
Despite the efforts of the media to prop up these soulless AAA projects, players are voting with their wallets. We are seeing a massive shift towards games made by passionate teams who have broken away from the big studios. Look at the success of Arc Raiders by Embark Studios. These developers left DICE because they wanted to make something real, and the numbers speak for themselves. The game has sold millions of copies and maintains a massive daily player count because it respects the player.
The charts for 2025 show a clear trend. The highest revenue games on Steam were rarely the $70 AAA bloatware titles. They were cheaper, more innovative games that offered a genuine experience. Players are tired of the “slop.” They are tired of games that try to be everything to everyone and end up being nothing to anyone.
If the industry wants to survive, it needs to abandon this culture of toxic positivity. We need honest criticism. We need to celebrate games like No Rest for the Wicked and Arc Raiders that take risks, and we need to stop pretending that every corporate cash grab is a masterpiece waiting to be discovered. Until journalists start serving the readers rather than the publishers, the cycle of expensive failures will only continue.