Sometimes, you do have to wonder what’s wrong with people on the internet. Wildlight Entertainment’s Highguard sure has come in for a cavalcade of online hate, because… erm… it was the final trailer shown at The Game Awards? Or was it because it wasn’t Half Life 3? Maybe because it was just a bit different? It’s hard to tell sometimes.
This free-to-play hero shooter comes from former Apex Legends devs, drawing on a whole host of random bits of MOBA, Capture the Flag, Overwatch, and Rainbow Six Siege before taking them in a slightly weird He-Man/Thundercats direction. It also gives you a mount to gallop across the map on, setting it quite clearly apart from both its developer’s past work, and its key competitors like Overwatch 2 and Marvel Rivals. Personally, I think it’s a mix that works.
You’re a Warden, a hero set on protecting the lands from ne’er-do-wells who’d use it for nefarious purposes. I think. You’re equipped with an odd mix of real-world styled armaments – hello sniper rifles and shotguns – and magical Warden abilities, with a limited use ‘tactical’ move, as well as an underpowered Ultimate that builds as you play, with some capable of altering the outcome of a round.
You start off in your own base. There’s six options to choose from, each with different looks, layouts and pros and cons, and you’ll need to work out which works best for you and your squad’s abilities. Each round you’re recommended a particular layout based on your team make-up, but it’s entirely up to you and your teammates. So far, everyone seems quite happy to follow the game’s recommendation, but I can see people settling on preferred options that provide the best opportunities for defense.
Your first task in any round of Highguard is the defensive phase. During this you’re able to reinforce the walls against attack if you’ve got iron, and it’s best to focus on protecting the central areas. Once that’s done, you set out to upgrade your arsenal, either farming from crystals to buy upgrades from the various stalls, or looting guns, ammo, armour, upgrades and special Raid devices from the chests positioned all over the map. The only frustration here is when you’re looking for very specific weaponry, having to make do at points with whatever the highest level thing you’ve found is. You rush around through these two periods, and it feels just about the right length not to drag.
Key to your offense is the Shieldbreaker. Once this sword appears, all hell lets loose as you and every other player on the map attempt to grab it. This is because, not only does it give you a He-Man “I have the power” moment, but it’ll spawn a giant Thundercats-esque tank to break down the shields wrapped around the opposition’s base.
This then segues into the best part of any round, the Capture the Flag-like race to the enemy base while riding your mount. You and your teammates saddle up, and try to find the best route across the map, with attackers hot on your heels, or teleporting back to their base to set up a perimeter. The Shieldbreaker gives off a massive electrical charge, so there’s no hiding here, and it can be super rewarding to set an ambush, or to ride through, scoring kills from horseback.
Once you’re in, you need to destroy the generators that are squirrelled away inside. You plant bombs on each of these, and then guard them until they detonate. Take out both generators, and the game is yours. You can go straight for the heart of the base if you’d prefer, with the Anchor Stone basically a one-shot kill to their stronghold. It takes longer to detonate your explosion, so you’ll have to hold off the enemy team in a tight, exhilarating gun battle, but if you’ve got a group that’s working well together, then it’s the fastest way to victory.
I found it really interesting just how much variation there can be through rounds of Highguard. I’ve won rounds in a few minutes, grabbing the Shieldbreaker and then instantly taking out the Anchor Stone. I’ve also played for well over half an hour, going through multiple rounds of push and pull, driving back siege weapons and attackers, before launching a counter-offensive. Each time you make it through a siege section, you drop back into the tooling-up phase, with the loot and weaponry steadily increasing in level. You can also repair your base against future assault, or go back to reinforcing all the walls, and it all feels rather good.
The 3v3 team size certainly works, though I wouldn’t complain about a few more bodies to bolster your team with. Limiting things to only six players at once, the maps can seem a touch too expansive, but when you’re riding around on your mounts, it suddenly makes much more sense to be covering swathes of ground while astride a bear. I mean, what can be better than that?
The gunplay is enjoyable, reactive and relatively tight, and you can feel the Apex Legends heritage running through each encounter with another player. There’s a fairly short time to kill, but I didn’t feel like I was instantaneously in and out. Respawns are quite slow as a punishment for falling, though, giving you a chunk of time to think about why you didn’t pull the trigger a fraction faster.
This is a game that lives and dies on you and your team playing the objective. It’s also the kind of game where you can’t just wander off on your own – apart from when you’re looking for loot during the interludes. So far, I’ve won most of the rounds where my team actually played together, and lost every one where they didn’t. I guess that will be most people’s experience.
So, the gunplay is good, and the systems all come together in a way that actually feels fresh and relatively new. Where’s the hitch? Well, for me it’s in the characters. There are currently eight Wardens, with five different classes, but within that eight, there’s already a few who are clearly less useful than others. Atticus, Scarlet, Kai and Slade are already becoming popular choices for dealing damage, though I truly hate Slade’s frat-boy visual design, and everyone else is undeniably generic.
My personal pick so far is Mara, the only Support character, though given that I play Moira in Overwatch, and Wildfire has used her design, abilities and personality as ‘inspiration’, it’s an easy fit for me.
The other three are currently much less useful. Falcon can give your team a boost with her Recon abilities, but can be easily evaded, while Una’s Wisps are just annoyances rather than the turret-like minions I would hope for. Her Ultimate is also a thoroughly underwhelming riff on Overwatch’s Ashe. Redmane, meanwhile, feels pretty great, but he’s only really any use when you’re attacking the enemy base, with his destructive abilities more of a liability on defence.
This is where Wildfire need to spend their time. If there’s only five truly viable characters, that’s a very constricted pool to draw from, and it will quickly lead to stagnation in team makeup and tactics. The roster needs a bump – I’m certain that there’s a bunch of characters waiting in the wings – and some of the Wardens need to be rebalanced and retuned.
Few games have ever elicited the kind of online vitriol Highguard has, and you know what? It doesn’t deserve it. There’s something both unique and familiar about it, and as a free-to-play title, it’s not asking anything of you, especially here at the start with its first free battle pass.
There are, of course, microtransactions lurking in the wings, and if you find your eye caught by one of the premium skins for a character, or your mount, they’re not the cheapest out there. There’s a few right now that I’d be tempted by, but after years of Overwatch, I do try not to get too caught up in it. Still, all it takes right now is a little resolve, and you can quite happily play for free. Really, it’s quite safe. Highguard can’t hurt you.
Performance on PS5 is good, with no noticeable hitches or frame drops. At times, it can feel like the image isn’t as clear as you’re expecting, but there’s nothing to hamper the moment-to-moment gameplay. Reports show that this isn’t the case on PC unless you’re running a massive rig, and hopefully, Wildlight can get on top of those issues quickly.
Highguard’s first steps into the PvP arena are confident and unashamed, despite what the angry voices on the internet might tell you. The slightly odd mix of Apex Legends, Rainbow Six and He-Man actually makes for a good time, and there’s so much room for more to happen here. That will take time, and I hope that it finds the audience it needs to thrive.
