Club Benefits
When Highguard was shown off as the closing trailer for The Game Awards Show in December, it invoked an intense, immediate backlash from gamers. The game was finally released this past week to surprising critical praise and continued gamer backlash.
I’ll admit that I wasn’t excited by the initial trailer, if only because I’m a little tired of the team v team shooter aesthetic. Still, Wildlight Entertainment is comprised of former developers who worked on the Titanfall series and Apex Legends, two franchises that I’ve enjoyed.
What is Highguard?
Highguard is a fantasy-punk 3v3 first-person shooter that attempts to differentiate itself from the crowded field of team-based shooters like Overwatch 2 and Marvel Rivals.
Like those shooters and Apex Legends, the octet of heroes comes with their own unique abilities. One character turns into a giant ice demon, another gets claw hands that can destroy walls. Somewhat standard stuff, though it did make me pine for Apex characters like Bangalore and her missile barrage or Wattson and her electric fences.
Like Apex Legends, a portion of the game is used to find and upgrade weapons in loot boxes that are spread around the map. You can run into the enemy team during the time. You can also mine crystals that can be used to purchase weapons and armor from a random vendor that sits in bases or the middle of the battlefield.
Games are split into three stages: looting, collecting a shieldbreaker, and the siege itself. The shieldbreaker is a sword that randomly drops into the map, and both teams can claim it. Whoever claims it first and manages to take it to the enemy base starts the siege.
The siege takes place with a giant cat battering ram that breaks the shield of your enemy's fortress. Then you have a limited amount of time to destroy generators or a glowy rock with bombs. Either way, you hurt the enemy base; it just depends on how much. First team to 0 base HP loses. If you fail to destroy the base, the rounds reset, and you do it again until a base is destroyed.
Familiar gameplay
If you enjoyed Apex Legends and Titanfall, then the controls and gameplay will feel intimately familiar. The loot boxes are essentially the same, and the armor is more or less equal to Apex.
As I was playing, I had two fairly consistent thoughts. This reminds me a lot of Starsiege Tribes, the best FPS ever made, if only for disc-jumping and skiing. But also, these maps are too big.
I’ve found that on some maps, the looting stage can be strangely lonely, where I fumble about opening boxes just waiting until the shieldbreaker spawns. On other maps, it felt like the boxes were only in certain zones that funneled the teams to each other.
At the same time, the bases are so big that at times, as a defender, I got flanked just because someone went around the back, and I couldn’t see them in the maze of the fortress. Three players don’t feel like enough to watch those corners.
Both too sweaty and not sweaty enough
I don’t know what kind of player Wildlight envisions for this game. In a wide-open 3v3 map, you really need to be a team when it comes to claiming the shieldbreaker. But also, once the siege starts to plant bombs on the generators requires teams stacking each other if the defenders are at all coordinated.
At the same time, in a few matches, I was able to just waltz in and plant a bomb on a generator scot-free. It is early days, but right now, any kind of coordination leads to steamrolling.
A higher player count would make the loot stage more interesting, as you have to fight both the enemy and your own teammates to get better weapons and armor. It would also make the siege section both more tense and more chaotic, which is sorely missing.
Nicely, the matches and rounds don’t last that long, so you’re not really stuck getting your face ground in.
Outlook
There is a kernel of something in Highguard. It takes the established team versus team shooter formula and adds some interesting ideas in the siege and looting. I would love to see more done with the siege idea.
As mentioned, the gunplay works well, and matches are quick. Yes, matches veer between lonely boredom and chaotic firefights, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
I fear that with the gamer backlash, this game won’t have time to find its legs. I think it deserves some time to figure out where it’s going. It’s already having trouble hanging on to concurrent players, according to Steam numbers.
This may be a grape that dies on the vine when it should be allowed to grow. Hopefully, it'll have the time it needs to reach its potential.
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