When you want a software, you not often attain for a Swiss Army Knife. It’s an possibility that solely is sensible when you don’t have any different choices. Have you ever tried to really minimize wooden with the shitty and really flimsy noticed blade included in a Swiss Army Knife or another related sort of multitool? I’ve. It was a horrible expertise, and I ended up shopping for a noticed to complete the job. It seems shoving many issues into one bundle isn’t an efficient strategy to make one thing good.
Anyway, have y’all performed Highguard?
Released on January 26, Highguard is a (deep breath) free-to-play fantasy-sci-fi MOBA-like 3v3 PVP hero shooter with base protection and raid mechanics. It was first unveiled because the finale of the 2025 Game Awards and obtained a less-than-stellar response from individuals on-line. And since then, the dialog about Highguard has been very unusual and oddly aggressive. People taking sides. Takes being shot out like mortars throughout social media. It’s one of many weirdest reactions to a online game I’ve seen in a few years.
But I’m not right here to speak about that Highguard, the one which exists on-line as a battlefield for takes, opinions, movies, and discourse concerning the discourse. I’m right here to supply a crucial take a look at the precise sport. The factor individuals can play proper now. And that Highguard is much much less fascinating than the dialog and the fiddle it.
That’s maybe the most important drawback going through Highguard because it enters into its second week leaking gamers like a toddler spilling juice from their first large child cup. It seems Highguard simply isn’t very fascinating.
Bland and boring
Highguard is such a boring sport to have a look at. Developers Wildlight Entertainment appear to have been unable to resolve what sort of sport Highguard is, and the primary signal of that’s in the way it mixes collectively fantasy, sci-fi, magic, and fashionable weapons. This mixing of genres and tropes could be carried out effectively, however not in Highguard; each asset and mannequin has had any potential character and grit sanded down to make sure the varied items mix collectively.
And they do mix. Perfectly. Too completely. Nothing stands out. There’s no allure. No quirks. Nothing to speak about with individuals or submit on-line. It’s the sort of sport that leaves your mind the second you cease taking part in it.
I’ve performed over 14 hours of the sport now throughout many matches, and I battle to call a personality past Slade, an obnoxious blonde dude who’s the closest Highguard will get to creating one thing that has persona. Everybody else is a generic robust man or sneaky lady with clothes and armor that appears like what you begin an RPG with, after which shortly exchange.
It’s a disgrace that Highguard is such a forgettable-looking sport as a result of I do suppose the concept of a raid shooter is a cool idea.
Let’s get able to raid
When a match kicks off, you begin at your base, decide a hero, and arrange defensive partitions. Next, you and your two teammates experience out and seek for loot on the map. This largely entails rushing round in your mount and opening chests. The different crew is doing the identical, and also you may run into them.
Eventually, a big sword begins to kind on the planet, and every crew must get to it, seize it, and take it to the enemy base to blast open their protect dome and raid the place. Do a superb job raiding and the match is over. Fail and this all repeats, however the loot on the planet will get higher. Once a crew pulls off a profitable raid, they win.
This may sound sophisticated in comparison with quite a lot of different shooters available on the market, and it does take a while to learn the way this all works. But as soon as I did, I used to be having some enjoyable with Highguard. I at all times felt like my crew may come again and win. We have been only one superior raid away from victory.
-
Back-of-the-box quote:
“I think one of them is named… Val? Vai? Violet? Something like that.”
-
Developer
Wildlight Entertainment
-
Type of sport
First-person sci-fi/fantasy MOBA-like PVP-only on-line raid shooter.
-
Like
Great gunplay, mounts are cool, raids are thrilling.
-
Disliked
Performance issues, overly large maps, bland aesthetic, too many concepts.
-
Platforms
PC, Xbox Series X/S, PS5 (Played on PS5 Pro)
-
Played
Played about 12 hours on PS5 Pro and round 3 hours on PC with mates and solo.
-
Release Date
January 26, 2026
And second to second, Highguard feels nice and jogs my memory of the graceful and snappy gunplay present in Titanfall 2. That is sensible contemplating the studio behind Highguard is made up of devs who labored on that sport. Breaking giant gems out on the planet between raids can be extraordinarily satisfying. I equally loved establishing defenses at my base earlier than heading out to seek out upgrades. And chasing somebody down on the again of a mount is thrilling and never an expertise present in most different on-line shooters. Then you could have every character’s distinctive powers and talents, which might dramatically change a struggle as you drop down a fireblast or whip up an enormous wall of ice. Oh, and there’s an entire loot financial system, during which you’ll want to steadiness shopping for higher weapons with ensuring you could have sufficient shields to climate future firefights. And then…
Too many transferring components
Well, see, we’ve reached the opposite main drawback with Highguard: It is making an attempt to be every thing.
Similar to its bland artwork fashion that makes it really feel just like the devs couldn’t commit to 1 concept and as a substitute tossed all of it in, Highguard’s gameplay is a seize bag of concepts and mechanics from different widespread video games. And whereas it will be cool if we may simply put ice cream, pizza, wine, and meatloaf right into a blender and blend all of it as much as get one thing even higher, that ain’t how the world works.
The quick, Call of Duty-like gunplay means you die shortly. This makes going out and entering into fights earlier than raids a chore. The improve and crystal financial system means it’s important to spend time looking down and breaking blue rocks, which, whereas satisfying to smash, compelling gameplay it doesn’t make. And certain, you get some foreign money from defeating different gamers, however late-game gear prices a lot and also you get so little from kills that in lengthy matches, I felt obligated to cease preventing and as a substitute go mining. The raids, simply the very best a part of Highguard, additionally make mounts largely nugatory, robbing the sport of one in every of its coolest options. And solely having three gamers on either side makes raids really feel much less epic, and the bases you defend too large. (Though the devs are already taking part in round with a 5v5 mode, which could assist.)
© Wildlight Entertainment
In different phrases, every bit of Highguard typically will get in the best way of the opposite items and may derail the entire expertise.
Perhaps Highguard will obtain weeks and months of updates to enhance a few of these issues. Perhaps it should add a 4v4 mode to make the map really feel much less empty. Maybe the time to kill, particularly within the early a part of matches, will probably be elevated so fights last more.
But none of that may have the ability to actually repair Highguard. It would take much more work to try this. Highguard is a forgettable shooter that stuffs an excessive amount of into one sport and finally ends up being a typically enjoyable however uneven mess. At least it’s a large number that almost all gamers received’t keep in mind for lengthy after they sign off.
