The Highguard situation is one that baffles me. Revealed as the last announcement at The Game Awards 2025, the game did not seem to “wow” many people right away. Geoff Keighley insisted that the developers didn’t pay for their slot and instead he was just passionate about the game. That had many people scratching their heads. So did the long period of radio silence between reveal and launch. Now that the game is here, is it any good?
Well…..no. No it is not. I honestly do not understand what the developers were going for with Highguard as it appears to be a mashup of a ton of different ideas but without understanding how to make them work. The result is a game that ends up being far too generic to stand out and plays things far too safe to attract any interest. There is just nothing to hook you into Highguard and the problems become apparent very fast.
To begin with, this is a 3v3 shooter, with a map that is way too big for 3v3. Because of this, you’re not really doing anything but running around when you play the game and this leads into the big problem that holds Highguard down: it’s just plain boring to the point where I long for the excitement of a three hour mandatory training seminar at work on how to properly use a microwave. And to be clear, there are many issues, but this one is the absolute worst.
This is not even getting into the numerous technical problems Highguard has, as the game struggles to run on PC and feels extremely poorly optimized. Testing on PS5 shows that version runs a bit better but is still extremely lackluster in terms of performance. The UI is also atrocious and feels far too cumbersome for a game of this kind and the HUD is way too cluttered and filled with lots of irrelevant information that just gets in the way.
I had people quit on me mid-match. I’m not the only one who has experienced that, either. I wondered what was going on, and then I found out why. There have been so many issues with disconnects that my attempts at actually playing a full match failed 75% of the time, one way or another. I’m quite confused why the developers aren’t getting on top of this, given the promotion the game had at TGA.
Even the gameplay falls apart, beyond just being boring. As mentioned, the maps are far too big for 3v3, but the loot system is just terribly handled here. It feels like Apex Legends, but without any of what made Apex Legends fun. It feels superfluous for the game itself and does not bring anything useful to the experience. That also ties into the large map issue, as Highguard requires you to either move in a pack to share the loot or you’ll just be too far away for it to be of any real use. At that point, it becomes too cumbersome. Why even bother to include it?
Highguard adds so many different concepts and ideas, but refuses to commit to any of them. The result is a game that wants to be for everyone, but fails to appeal to anyone. Its use of the loot system makes it clear that mix and match game design will ultimately not work unless you understand why gamers like certain concepts and how to make them work properly.
What the developers don’t understand is that dumping every cool idea into a blender just doesn’t work. Highguard asks “what if there was magic and guns? What if you could ride animals and wield magic swords while going against a giant siege tower?” The result is one of the most flat and unappealing games ever. The characters are bland and lack any personality and the game tries to blend fast paced pvp shooters with raid style shooters and resource extraction. All it leads to is a giant mess that does not work.
The audio-visual component is not any better as the sound design in Highguard is frankly abysmal, with sound effects that do not work right and weird pop-in that gets distracting. The lack of real in-game music or ambience is also an odd choice. Visually the game is not that great, as besides the aforementioned cluttered HUD, everything just looks way too blurry and washed out for its own good. There were also some texture issues I noticed from time to time that popped up and, despite the trailers, the actual gameplay looks far less dynamic. Nothing catches your eye in the game and the art-style just feels held back by the washed out visuals.
I will just be blunt here and just say that Highguard was not ready for release. The game needed a lot more time in development to improve things, so right now Highguard is a game I cannot recommend in good conscience. I hope that Wildlight Entertainment will actually put the time in to try to fix the game, but what we have here is just a disaster in desperate need of a major overhaul. I’m left wondering what the devs were thinking with this and, most importantly, why they thought it was a good idea.