Highguard's Launch: A Magical Mishap or a Fixable Flop?
AI Gaming News Author · kotaku ·
Wildlight Entertainment's new free-to-play raid shooter, Highguard, from ex-Titanfall devs, launched with a promising concept but quickly hit a wall of PC performance woes, missing console features, and classic server overload. Jeff dives into the chaotic first hours, cautiously optimistic that the game's genuine potential and strong player interest will help it overcome these initial magical mishaps.
Right, so remember that moment at The Game Awards 2025 when *Highguard* tried to drop-kick its way into our collective consciousness? The one from those ex-Titanfall folks that kinda... fizzled? Weeks of radio silence followed, mate, folks whispering 'another Concord in the making,' you know the drill. It felt like a spell being cast in the dark, and we were all just waiting to see if it would summon a majestic beast or just turn the caster into a newt. Well, the incantation's complete, *Highguard* has finally launched, and bloody hell, it's a classic case of 'exciting potential meets launch day chaos.' I've been tinkering with this story all morning, and while the core game itself might actually be rather fun, getting *into* it – or running it smoothly – seems to be an entirely different boss battle altogether, one filled with more technical glitches than a wizard's workshop after a potion explosion.
For those who might've missed the pre-launch deep dive (and honestly, who could blame you after that initial radio silence? It was more elusive than a mythical beast!), *Highguard* is a free-to-play, 3v3 PVP 'raid shooter.' Now, that's a mouthful, isn't it? Reckon it translates to a delightful concoction that mixes the tactical base defence of *Rainbow Six Siege* with the frantic field skirmishes of a MOBA, a dash of gear upgrading, and then a grand finale raid on one of the team’s bases to decide who wins. Sounds like a mad scientist brewed up a game in a lab, throwing in all the popular ingredients to see what sticks. And fair dinkum, from what I've glimpsed and fiddled with (when it’s actually behaving, that is), there’s a genuinely good game lurking beneath the surface, brimming with interesting mechanics that could genuinely shake things up. Our initial previews were similarly positive, suggesting the *gameplay* has real promise. But here's the rub, eh? Great concepts need great execution.
The rub, my friends, is that actually *playing* the thing right now can feel like trying to cast a high-level spell with a wand made of spaghetti, especially on PC. Even solid rigs – like yours truly’s RTX 5070 – are apparently struggling to maintain anything resembling smooth framerates, even on medium settings with DLSS humming along. It's a curious thing, isn't it? You've got this cutting-edge hardware, and the game just sort of... shrugs. And I'm definitely not alone in this digital quagmire. The *Highguard* subreddit is awash with tales of woe: players wrestling with graphics settings that refuse to stick, or – and this is a classic – missing dialogue during the tutorial. It's like the game decided to skip a few pages in its own instruction manual, isn't it? You gotta wonder what sorcery is going on under the hood when a game can't even hold onto its own config files. PC optimization is a beast, absolutely, with a million different hardware combinations to account for, but this seems a bit more fundamental than just a driver hiccup.
Consoles aren't entirely escaping the launch day shenanigans either. The PlayStation 5 version is apparently missing a Field of View (FOV) slider. Now, for the uninitiated, an FOV slider lets you adjust how much of the game world you can see on screen. For a fast-paced first-person shooter like *Highguard*, it's not just a 'nice to have,' it's a critical component for comfort and competitive awareness. Without it, some players feel like they're playing with blinkers on, which, for a game that blends tactical elements with MOBA-like skirmishes, is a real immersion killer and can even cause motion sickness for some. Remember the kerfuffle when *Borderlands 4* pulled a similar trick? They eventually fixed it, so I'm optimistically chaotic enough to reckon *Highguard* will follow suit. There are also whispers of blurry visuals on consoles, which could hopefully be a quicker, less arcane fix. Fingers crossed, eh? It’s these quality-of-life features that often separate a merely playable game from a truly enjoyable one.
Then there's the inevitable server apocalypse. Ah, launch day server queues and disconnects – it’s a tale as old as time, or at least as old as multiplayer gaming. According to SteamDB, nearly 98,000 players all tried to jump into *Highguard* on Steam alone. That's a fair few digital wizards knocking on the server's door at once, isn't it? While it's utterly annoying for us gamers, stuck in a digital waiting room, you can bet the devs at Wildlight Entertainment are probably doing a little happy dance, even as they frantically try to patch things up. It's a 'good problem' to have, as they say, certainly better than the alternative. Remember *Concord*? Bless its short-lived heart, it barely scraped 1,000 concurrent players before doing a spectacular swan dive less than a month after its dismal launch. *Highguard* definitely isn't looking like that kind of short-lived flop, which is a massive silver lining I can certainly appreciate. It shows genuine player interest, which is half the battle for any new live-service title. The logistical nightmare of scaling servers to meet unpredictable launch day demand is an epic quest in itself, and these ex-Titanfall devs certainly have their work cut out for them.
So, where does this leave us, the curious gamers navigating the turbulent waters of a new live-service launch? *Highguard* has certainly stumbled out of the gate, like a newly summoned golem still figuring out its legs, or a carefully brewed potion that's a bit too fizzy. But the sheer volume of players attempting to get in, despite the rough edges, suggests there's a genuine appetite for what this game is offering. The developers have even confirmed they've got about a year's worth of content already in the pipeline, which, for a free-to-play title, is a pretty decent commitment and shows they're in it for the long haul. Now, of course, the internet being the internet, the 'dead game' chants will inevitably begin – it's practically a launch day tradition for live-service titles, isn't it? A bit like that one friend who always proclaims the end of the world after a minor inconvenience. But I reckon it’s far too early for that. This feels more like a minor magical mishap, a spell that backfired slightly, rather than a catastrophic summoning gone wrong. If Wildlight Entertainment can get these technical gremlins sorted – and quickly – then *Highguard* might just have the potential to transcend its rocky start and carve out its own unique niche in the increasingly crowded shooter landscape. I'll be watching with keen interest (and maybe a bit of cautious optimism) to see if they can pull off the ultimate wizardry: making a great game *actually* run great for everyone. Here’s hoping, eh? Because when a game from a pedigree like this has genuine potential, it's worth seeing if it can overcome its initial stumbles.
Tags: Highguard, FPS, Live Service, Game Launch, Technical Issues
Original article: kotaku