I know hating on games is a wildly popular pastime. If we’re being fair, the gaming industry has made it pretty easy to hate. Trend chasing for a quick buck, that weird NFT push, and very anti-consumer practices are surefire ways to get people to hate you.
Highguard was doomed from the start; Geoff Keighley’s “one more thing” during 2025’s Game Awards practically sealed the game’s fate. It doesn’t help that Highguard is a 3v3 hero shooter with raid mechanics made by veterans who worked on Titanfall and Apex Legends. Or at least, nobody really knew what it was since very little gameplay was shown, and the developers went radio silent ahead of the game’s January 26, 2026 launch.
II wish the tone of this post improved, but 24 hours after Highguard’s arrival, it sits at Mostly Negative on Steam with over 15,000 reviews ripping it to shreds. Steam reviews are definitely an issue, since it’s so easy to jump on the internet and talk crap, but buried beneath the angry reviews, there are some good reviews that point out the misses here.
After a few hours of Highguard and one uninstall later, I stand somewhere in the middle. I don’t hate Highguard, but there’s a lot here that doesn’t make sense and actively hurts this game. Wildlight Entertainment has a lot of work to do if it hopes to keep the servers up for this one.
Jack of all trades, master of none
As I mentioned earlier, Highguard is a 3v3 hero shooter with raid mechanics. It’s essentially a glorified game of Search and Destroy, with your goal to destroy the enemy team’s base. Spawn in, reinforce your base, loot up, and pick up the “Shieldbreaker” when it spawns in. The Shieldbreaker lets you pierce a base’s shields; once it’s pierced, you can enter and plant bombs. Successfully destroy bomb sites in the enemy’s base or reduce their base health to zero (from 100), and you’ll win the match.
I gave you the short and sweet version of a match, and after playing it, it’s fair to say Highguard has a “clear” loop of what you’re doing. Yet the systems present make it confusing and messy: not because of originality, but because they’re a combination of elements from nearly every game that existed.
You’ll experience Fortnite material gathering, as you’ll use an axe to break crystals that can be traded for higher rarity loot. There’s an awkward period where you can reinforce your base a la Rainbow Six Siege, which feels rather worthless because there are so many tools that can easily demolish structures.
The character kits and feel of the game are straight out of Apex Legends. You could put Highguard and Apex Legends next to each other, and you’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference. There’s also the world economy, such as armor and weapons, which feel much worse in this game. For example, you constantly have to pick up stacks of armor because on death, you’ll default to the lowest tier in your inventory, so if you forget to pick up those 18 stacks of purple armor, you’ll respawn with common armor once you burn through what you have.
Overall, the game feels poorly balanced. Ability cooldowns feel way longer than they should, and weapons don’t feel good at all. Weirdly enough, weapons feel so bad it’s like they’re missing attachments or stat boosters to help. I wonder if that was in the cards at one point or will be implemented in the future.
The biggest offense is that the game’s 3v3 approach is terrible. The maps are too big, so you spend a lot of time Fortnite crystal hunting instead of participating in the action. I played a 31-minute match, which is damn near insanity for a game like this that’s not that complex. Going back to balancing, each opponent’s base is at 100 health. You could win an entire game by simply repelling an enemy team’s raid because said team loses health if you repel their raid attempt.
Highguard feels like an amalgamation of many ideas, but rather than fluidly tying them together, it just kind of presents itself as it is and expects to land. I’d argue the ideas here don’t mesh at all, so if you’re familiar with any of the games I mentioned, Highguard feels jarring to play.
I unfortunately don’t have much positive to share as it stands. I didn’t hate it, it just didn’t move the needle at all.
I also want to say the Shieldbreaker is way too cool to be used for opening enemy shields. Such a missed opportunity.
Highguard’s uphill battle
Alongside the game’s launch, Wildlight Entertainment revealed its first-year plans for the game. It’s the usual combination of new heroes, new bases, new weapons, and amulets, which you can take a look at below.
I’m not sure how far down the roadmap we make it, Highguard needs a lot of work. The most pressing change is that 3v3 needs to go, and it needs to go now. Make the teams a little bigger, maybe 4v4? Or if the team is deadset on 3v3, make the maps smaller.
Another cool thing the team could try out is introducing a 3v3v3 or something of that nature. Smaller maps, less base health, something that keeps the action frantic and constant.
Format aside, the rest of the game will take time to gel, which I feel like is fair since, again, I didn’t hate what I played. It just felt generic and uninspired, so many chefs, but a poorly executed vision. I’d say Highguard is like a few patches away from making sense or feeling like a decent game, system’s removed or entirely reworked.
In its current state, there isn’t much of a hook here, and this would’ve been better off as a beta or a test, not a full launch. Nowadays, you need games to stick on launch, and this one isn’t sticking for me and many others, leaving a rather precarious future for Highguard.
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