Don’t look now, but a new team-based hero FPS has landed on the gaming world from seemingly out of nowhere. Highguard, the debut game from WildLight Entertainment that was first showcased during last year’s Game Awards, has officially made its free-to-play release this week across PC, Xbox X|S, and PlayStation 5, complete with cross-platform and crossplay support.
The self-described “PvP raid shooter” pits two teams of three against one another in an extended sort of base attack and defense gameplay mode. Teams are tasked with choosing a starting base for themselves, entering the open map to find a Shieldbreaker sword, then using it to breach the enemy base’s defenses and ultimately destroy it, all while defending their own base from the same thing.
Highguard has five maps, eight different hero characters (aka Wardens), multiple weapons and mods, and lootable gear that can be found out in the map. More content is already planned for the remainder of the year in a roadmap, which promises new raid tools, weapons, characters, maps, and at least one surprise, all of which arrive in two month-long “episodes” that are divided into two halves each.
As with most new multiplayer game launches, Highguard’s release hasn’t exactly been buttery smooth, as “mostly negative” Steam user reviews complain about the game’s blurry visuals, oversized maps, and team sizes being too small, while the devs put out a stability fixing update and promised to continue investigating launch issues.
The day one “contact with the enemy” jitters may not shake the devs at WildLight, as the heads of the studio exuded plenty of confidence ahead of Highguard’s launch and resolved to have more staying power than the likes of Concord or the original Overwatch.
“What we’re confident in is that we’re not going anywhere. We’re not going away,” said studio co-founder and CEO Dusty Welch at a pre-release press event last week. “We as a team have a lot of experience in building franchises that have staying power. […] We have the experience, but that said, we’re humbled, and we hope people love this — but we’re ready to engage with them.”
