Once you want a instrument, you hardly ever attain for a Swiss Military Knife. It’s an possibility that solely is smart when you haven’t any different choices. Have you ever ever tried to really reduce wooden with the shitty and really flimsy noticed blade included in a Swiss Military Knife or some other comparable 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 package deal isn’t an efficient solution to make one thing good. Anyway, have y’all performed Highguard? Launched 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 Recreation Awards and acquired a less-than-stellar response from folks on-line. And since then, the dialog about Highguard has been very unusual and oddly aggressive. Folks 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.
However 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 in regards to the discourse. I’m right here to supply a essential have a look at the precise recreation. The factor folks can play proper now. And that Highguard is way much less attention-grabbing than the dialog and the fiddle it. That’s maybe the most important drawback dealing with Highguard because it enters into its second week leaking gamers like a toddler spilling juice from their first huge child cup. It seems Highguard simply isn’t very attention-grabbing.
Bland and boring Highguard is such a boring recreation to take a look at. Builders Wildlight Leisure appear to have been unable to determine what sort of recreation Highguard is, and the primary signal of that’s in the way it mixes collectively fantasy, sci-fi, magic, and trendy weapons. This mixing of genres and tropes could be completed 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.
They usually do mix. Completely. Too completely. Nothing stands out. There’s no attraction. No quirks. Nothing to speak about with folks or publish on-line. It’s the sort of recreation 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 wrestle to call a personality past Slade, an obnoxious blonde dude who’s the closest Highguard will get to creating one thing that has persona. Everyone 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 change.
It’s a disgrace that Highguard is such a forgettable-looking recreation as a result of I do assume the thought of a raid shooter is a cool idea. Let’s get able to raid When a match kicks off, you begin at your base, choose a hero, and arrange defensive partitions. Subsequent, you and your two teammates trip out and seek for loot on the map. This largely entails rushing round in your mount and opening chests. The opposite workforce is doing the identical, and also you may run into them. Finally, a big sword begins to kind on the planet, and every workforce must get to it, seize it, and take it to the enemy base to blast open their protect dome and raid the place. Do an excellent job raiding and the match is over. Fail and this all repeats, however the loot on the planet will get higher. As soon as a workforce pulls off a profitable raid, they win.
This may sound sophisticated in comparison with numerous different shooters available on the market, and it does take a while to learn the way this all works. However as soon as I did, I used to be having some enjoyable with Highguard. I all the time felt like my workforce might come again and win. We had been only one superior raid away from victory. Again-of-the-box quote: “I believe certainly one of them is called… Val? Vai? Violet? One thing like that.” Developer Wildlight Leisure Kind of recreation First-person sci-fi/fantasy MOBA-like PVP-only on-line raid shooter. Like Nice gunplay, mounts are cool, raids are thrilling. Disliked Efficiency issues, overly huge maps, bland aesthetic, too many concepts. Platforms PC, Xbox Collection X/S, PS5 (Performed on PS5 Professional) Performed Performed about 12 hours on PS5 Professional and round 3 hours on PC with buddies and solo. Launch 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 smart contemplating the studio behind Highguard is made up of devs who labored on that recreation. Breaking giant gems out on the planet between raids can be extraordinarily satisfying. I equally loved organising 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 may have every character’s distinctive powers and talents, which might dramatically change a combat as you drop down a fireblast or whip up a giant wall of ice. Oh, and there’s a complete loot economic system, during which you might want to steadiness shopping for higher weapons with ensuring you may have sufficient shields to climate future firefights. After which…
Too many shifting components Effectively, see, we’ve reached the opposite main drawback with Highguard: It’s attempting to be all the things. Just like its bland artwork type 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 in style video games. And whereas it might be cool if we might 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, Name of Obligation-like gunplay means you die shortly. This makes going out and moving into fights earlier than raids a chore. The improve and crystal economic system means you need to spend time searching down and breaking blue rocks, which, whereas satisfying to smash, compelling gameplay it doesn’t make. And positive, you get some forex 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 perfect a part of Highguard, additionally make mounts largely nugatory, robbing the sport of certainly one of its coolest options. And solely having three gamers on both sides makes raids really feel much less epic, and the bases you defend too huge. (Although the devs are already taking part in round with a 5v5 mode, which could assist.)
© Wildlight Leisure In different phrases, every bit of Highguard usually will get in the best way of the opposite items and may derail the entire expertise. Maybe Highguard will obtain weeks and months of updates to enhance a few of these issues. Maybe it’ll add a 4v4 mode to make the map really feel much less empty. Perhaps the time to kill, particularly within the early a part of matches, shall be elevated so fights last more. However none of that can be capable of actually repair Highguard. It will take much more work to do this. Highguard is a forgettable shooter that stuffs an excessive amount of into one recreation and finally ends up being a generally enjoyable however uneven mess. Not less than it’s a multitude that almost all gamers gained’t keep in mind for lengthy after they log out.
