The free-to-play PvP 'raid shooter' Highguard was released yesterday on PC and consoles, as covered in our previous article. Right away, it reached a peak of around 97K concurrent players on Steam, though that's not so big considering that the game is free. Perhaps the poor reception when the game was unveiled at Geoff Keighley's The Game Awards 2025, as the final trailer of that show, played a part.
In an interview with PC Gamer, Wildlight Entertainment CEO and founder Dusty Welch acknowledged that it was the team's responsibility to make a better trailer to show off their own game:
Look, I wish Highguard had been received better. I wish the feedback had been better. Part of that's on us, right? We didn't put our heads in the sand. We, as a team, saw the feedback. We're gamers ourselves. We're online ourselves reading the feedback.
I think, ultimately, we could have made a different trailer—a better trailer that wasn't about entertaining, which is what we think The Game Awards was about. We could have made something that did a better job of highlighting the unique loop of the game. So that's on us. We take that, but the team is resilient.
The development team has a far bigger issue than the trailer, though. Now that the game is out, it's being ripped apart in user reviews on Steam, which are currently 'Mostly Negative' with only around 32% giving Highguard a thumbs up.
One of the most common criticisms is that the game map is way too large, especially in the current 3v3 format. Players believe teams should be at least 5v5, if not 10v10. Some users are also complaining about the game's PC optimization. The game runs on Unreal Engine 5, by the way.
Highguard is definitely not off to a good start, that's for sure. However, we've seen live service games make comebacks before. It's tough, but if the developers work hard at it while following the community's feedback, it's doable. We'll keep an eye on future updates and revamps to see how it goes for this new game.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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