After much fanfare, though not generated in a positive way, the multiplayer shooter Highguard is out, and free to play for all. And no, it’s not dead on arrival, but currently the reception it’s getting echoes familiar criticisms. Although despite this, there’s also praise for it as well. If you haven’t been in the loop about this game, Highguard was announced in December at the 2025 Game Awards by Geoff Keighley as the show’s crème de la crème reveal. The trailer showed off some of the game’s siege mechanics, visuals, and general fantasy-scifi hybrid vibe, but didn’t leave many specifics. And until today, everyone’s been in the dark about what exactly the game is, as the developers didn’t release even a single social post to generate any hype or market itself since its reveal. The developers, Wildlight Entertainment, are composed of much of the same team that worked on fan-favorites like Titanfall 2 and Apex Legends, and though that may have given Highguard some credibility, if anything it led fans to disappointment. There’s been almost nothing but pessimism on social media for the past month of the world knowing of the game’s existence, and that trend continues today–or does it?
The main buzz that you’ll see on X about the game concerns its Overwhelmingly Negative review score on Steam. Players lambast Highguard for poor technical performance, its kernel level anticheat–though that didn’t stop BF6 from getting good reviews–its “bland” visuals that some compare to the ever-infamous Concord, and what they see as a confusing and poorly spaced primary gamemode. Though that last bit of criticism seems to go both ways. A match of the game looks like this: two teams of three pick their character with unique abilities, establish a shielded base in a large open map, scrounge for resources, guns, and magic relics around said map, then after obtaining a special shield-breaking sword, attempt to raid and destroy each other’s bases. There’s some MOBA elements there, and some Apex-style movement, and some Destiny-esque first-person shooting, and some CS:GO bomb objectives, and an even longer list of similarities to other established titles. Highguard doesn’t shy away from identifying itself as a rather unique take on the multiplayer shooter, and indeed it seems to mash up several different genres, but that seems to be something that a lot of players also enjoy.
Regardless of criticism, thousands of players flooded its servers today, and to boot, the developers have broken their radio silence. Which, apparently, according to Tom Henderson of Insider Gaming who along with other publications interviewed Wildlight Entertainment heads at recent closed door press event, was due to the fact that Highguard was supposed to be a shadow-drop. That is, before Geoff Keighley got a hold of it, loved it to bits, and wanted to feature it at the Game Awards. The developers also shared that they don’t necessarily care all too much if Highguard sustains a relatively low concurrent player average, because in their eyes, all they really need is a dedicated niche of players to keep playing. Six players aren’t that difficult to matchmake, they’ve also got a content roadmap packed and ready to ship for this year, and it starts in only a couple of weeks.