Highguard is fine when you don’t have an internet in your ear telling you it’s nasty

Let’s set aside the noxious cloud of internet surrounding Highguard for a second, ignore those overwhelmingly negative Steam reviews full of folks who’ve played it for less than an hour, and pretend Highguard is just a new free-to-play FPS that came out today.

Hey, Highguard is out. I played around six hours between launch day and a preview event in Los Angeles last week. It’s got slick gunplay, a neat 3v3 mode that I’ve never seen anywhere else, and a business model that sounds less scummy than most free shooters. It’s pretty fun. I don’t think I love it.

I will commend Wildlight Entertainment, the 100-person studio of mostly ex-Respawn devs, for coming up with a format so weird (yet functional) that you can’t easily compare it. They call it a “raid shooter,” which is appropriate, as winning comes down to blowing the other team’s base to smithereens.

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Highgard matches take place on a large map shared by just six total players—two teams of three. Teams begin in their fortress, fortify its breakable walls, then mount up and set off to loot the map. This phase plays out like an accelerated battle royale match—rushing to find better guns and armor, but usually not immediately fighting the other team. Violence tends to break out once the Swordbreaker, a literal sword, spawns in the middle of the map. First team to grab it and carry it to the enemy base triggers a siege.

Unlike a battle royale circle that forces enemy squads to clash by pushing them toward a center, the Shieldbreaker naturally draws the lobby to it. Once it appears, getting it is the only thing that matters. “Reverse capture the flag” was how Wildlight described this first phase of the match, and so far it’s my favorite.

There’s real tension to fighting over the big glowy sword, especially because the distance between the Shieldbreaker spawn and each base is just large enough that you can die, respawn at your base, and set up one last ambush before they reach your walls. Or, you let the other team grab the sword and then chase them down on your mounts.

Once a siege starts, Highguard slows down. Mounts are stowed, defenders take up overwatch positions, and the rules change to a bomb format similar to Rainbow Six Siege (but with respawns). That’s right down to the blend of destructible and non-destructible walls that make up each base. Blow up two generators, or one harder-to-reach core, and you win. Fail to do enough damage before attackers run out of lives, and both teams reset to do another Shieldbreaker round.

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It sounds complicated. It is complicated, especially when you layer in the upgrade store, gadgets, and character abilities I haven’t even covered. But I can’t deny it works. After a few matches where I barely understood what was happening, the unique tug-of-war dynamic clicked, I found a Warden (hero) I liked, and great matches were had.

(Image credit: Wildlight Entertainment)

Still, I’m bouncing off Highguard for reasons other than its clever mode. I don’t like the “arcane punk” art style at all, it sucks to dump entire magazines into enemies just to break their shields (just like it does in Apex Legends), and the siege phase is too chaotic to read what’s going on.

More than anything though, Highguard is ill-timed for me to enjoy it. For the better part of a year, I’ve been glued to more casual, multi-mode shooters both old and new. Case in point: after a full day of Highguard in Los Angeles last week, I came home and played hours of new indie arena shooter Out of Action (now that’s a cool-ass game) before queuing for Big Team Battle in Halo: MCC with friends.

The success of Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders suggest I’m not alone: We’re in the middle of a vibe shift toward less sweaty, more social shooters. Call it hero shooter burnout or tastes naturally moving on before they someday swing back in the other direction, but Highguard is swiping at my matchbook and lighting no fire. I’ll keep playing because I’m reviewing it (stay tuned for that), but I don’t see Highguard becoming a habit.