The eagerly awaited shooter Highguard has launched on Steam. While the game recorded almost 100,000 concurrent players on its first day, the community’s verdict is damning.
The release of Highguard can probably be described as a classic double-edged sword: On the one hand, the team at Wildlight Entertainment, which consists of former developers of titles such as Apex Legends and Titanfall, achieved a remarkable success in terms of interest.
According to SteamDB, player numbers climbed to a peak of 97,249 concurrent players shortly after release. This puts the title well ahead of many competitors in the competitive hero shooter genre.
On the other hand, however, the studio’s joy at the full servers is likely to be muted, as the mood within the community has shifted. With over 18,000 votes cast, the positive rating currently stands at only 30 percent.
Technical hurdles and performance issues
The main point of criticism that runs through most of the negative reviews is the technical state of the game.
Initially, the shooter struggled with server issues: Shortly after release, almost all players ended up in a queue – and after this problem was fixed, in incomplete matches.
Many players also report significant performance drops and a lack of optimization: Even on high-end systems with the latest hardware, such as an RTX 4090 or the new 5000 series, the game seems to have difficulty delivering stable frame rates. The graphics are also said to be slightly blurred.
Highguard also requires Secure Boot and TPM 2.0, which causes error messages for some users when they try to start the game. The use of anti-cheat software at the kernel level (in this case, Easy Anti-Cheat) is also viewed critically in the comments.
“Maps far too large for 3v3”
Aside from the technology, the core gameplay is also under fire: Highguard mixes elements from hero shooters, siege battles, and resource gathering – a combination that, according to many reviewers, doesn’t quite work. A frequently mentioned criticism is the imbalance between map size and number of players.
The maps are simply too large for 3v3 battles, which leads to long periods of downtime where teams have to ride across the map for a long time without encountering any opponents.
You can see exactly how Highguard plays in the following video:
The community does not mince words:
- The gameplay loop is often described as sluggish or boring. Between the short combat phases, you spend a lot of time collecting resources and loot or reinforcing your base.
- Many players perceive the design as a “Frankenstein’s monster” that attempts to combine Apex Legends, Overwatch, and Valorant without developing its own identity.
- The heroes are criticized as bland and interchangeable, partly because the game largely dispenses with world building.
Despite the harsh criticism, there are also voices praising the gunplay and the basic idea: Some players see potential in the mix of shooting and castle siege, provided the studio quickly gets the technical issues under control.
There is also praise for the unusually fair Free2Play model:
There are no game-relevant purchases, and even the first Battle Pass is free. This means that all players can unlock a whole range of hero, mount, and weapon skins, as well as other cosmetic content, without having to pay anything.
There is also a small ray of hope: after the massive review bombing immediately after release, the Steam ratings are slowly recovering.
Immediately after release, the percentage of positive reviews was only about 18 percent. The game has now worked its way up to around 30 percent.
In the coming days and weeks, it remains to be seen whether Wildlight Entertainment can turn things around or whether the high player numbers were just a flash in the pan before a bigger crash.
