Wildlight Entertainment’s PvP raid shooter, Highguard, has launched to “mostly negative” user reviews on Steam.
Over 12 hours after launch, based on a total of 13,190 user reviews for Highguard, the consensus on Steam has been “mostly negative”. The free-to-play title received an initial surge of concurrent players, quickly reaching a peak of 97,249. However, the stats quickly saw a sharp decline amid an increasing number of negative reviews. The outrage comes from issues related to design choices, performance optimization, and overall polish.
Players reported optimization issues even on modern hardware. One reviewer playing on an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU/NVIDIA RTX 5080 GPU/64 GB RAM system configuration summed up their frustration by saying, “Why does this run so poorly? Actual 2026 game moment.”
Several reviews criticized Highguard’s 3v3 format, arguing that it fundamentally clashes with the game’s massive maps. One user described the experience as “confusing”, saying the game forces players to juggle looting, farming, capturing objectives, and PvP, only to “punish you for not working as a team.” Others echoed this sentiment, with one stating that “the map is the size of Latvia but you only have 3 players”, resulting in long stretches of running with little action.
Highguard has also failed to impress its audience in terms of graphics. Despite maxed-out settings and high resolutions, multiple reviewers describe the visuals as blurry and unclear. One noted that “the maps don’t feel innovative at all”, while another called it “an ugly game even with the settings cranked to the max.” The art direction has been criticized as unfocused, with one reviewer joking that it feels like the developers “dumped every Cool Idea into a vat” without cohesion.
Matches tend to drag, with one player wanting to quit halfway through their very first game. The loot mechanics are criticized for adding “neither excitement nor usefulness” to the game.
Server instability and matchmaking problems further elevated these frustrations. One review highlighted repeated failed lobbies, disconnects, and teammates leaving early, making it difficult to even experience a full match. Upon eventually having a proper session, the reviewer found the gunplay to be noting out of the ordinary and said they “wouldn’t recommend this game to friends in this state.”
