Shooter Monthly #4: Highguard's Shadow Drop and the Two-Genre Reality
The question nobody in the West wants to answer honestly: the biggest shooters in the world are not the ones you argue about on Twitter.
Shooter Monthly #4 is here. Christopher Anjos (DICE), Chris Sides, Feras Musmar, and I talk Highguard and Spectre Divide as case studies for why "ex-Apex devs" is marketing copy, not a strategy, and why in 2026 a shooter does not get a long runway to "fix it live."
We discuss:
- Highguard as a MOBA-raid shooter hybrid, and why its best moments arrive only after five minutes of downtime.
- Defense phase, resource phase, then the game finally becomes itself: mounts, CTF energy, base raiding.
- Shadow drops vs. tech tests: why the Apex Legends playbook does not port cleanly into 2026.
- "Early access" is just launch, and Steam labels do not save you from retention.
- The 3v3 trap: high-risk formats where one leaver or one death warps the whole match.
- Why 3-person squads feel like a couple plus a third wheel, and when 3v3v3 or 5v5 might actually work.
- The "two genres" thesis: Battle Royale and tactical shooters as the market's default equilibrium.
- The creator-credit illusion: "ex-Red Dead lead designer" as a brand signal that often means nothing.
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