Highguard review: "A fresh but muddled FPS genre mashup that needs refinement if it's to have any staying power"

For my first few matches of Highguard, it's clear that no one has a clue what's going on. My teammates and I reinforce the five closest walls to be done with our defensive commitment and then start impatiently bashing our mounts' heads into the shield dome, waiting for it to open so that we can get into the real action – unfortunately, not before we've plundered some loot chests and whacked Vesper crystals with an axe though.

Splitting off from my team, I'm inundated with shiny new guns, armor vests, and all sorts of doodads with tooltip descriptions that I don't have time to read properly because battle is suddenly upon us. As both teams clash over the dome-destroying Shieldbreaker sword, bullets, grenades, lightning spears, and scanning birds fly everywhere. The action only escalates once one team initiates a raid on the other's base, shifting the whole match from a game of looting and shooting on equal footing to an asymmetrical brawl of base defense and bomb defusing. One thing's for sure, Highguard really tries to do it all.

As Wildlight Entertainment's debut title, Highguard is an ambitious live-service multiplayer "PvP raid shooter" that fuses an awful lot of FPS staples to make something new but with mixed results. Given that Wildlight is headed up by former developers of the iconic Apex Legends and Titanfall franchise, Highguard obviously benefits from slick first-person hero shooter action that's uniquely intense when it all comes together. But its bloated and muddled genre mashup format needs a lot of refinement if it's to have any staying power.

Breach and unclear

After putting several hours into Highguard, I tried to explain it to a friend and couldn't help but launch into a 10-minute rant instead, with a sizable chunk of that time dedicated to just describing what this raid shooter even is.

The Apex Legends ancestry is immediately obvious in Highguard – Warden characters with distinct Tactical, Passive, and Ultimate Powers, Battle Royale-style looting, and an extremely similar visual presentation. But Highguard also jams in base defense and building destruction mechanics very similar to those in Rainbow Six Siege. Then, when battling over possession of the magical Shieldbreaker sword, it also echoes tense Capture the Flag runs in Halo 3. Even the overarching objective of raiding the enemy's base without letting your own fall reminds me of Ratchet & Clank 3's Siege mode.

But don't be fooled into thinking these comparisons will help you when it comes to actually playing Highguard. While its tutorial does its best to teach the basics of shooting, looting, mining Vesper deposits, and raiding, my first few matches revealed a steep initial learning curve. The ever-changing objectives combined with the necessity of upgrading my gear, all while trying to learn how my chosen Warden's powers worked made for a borderline overwhelming beginner experience.

This complexity ultimately means that Highguard feels like it has an unusually high barrier to entry, despite riffing on so many familiar games. I can only imagine that trying to learn the game now, a week or so after launch, is even tougher compared to launch day – coming up against an even slightly competent team of players who have a few hours under their belts might lead to a drubbing that is wholly off-putting.

Raiding party

So, I wasn't exactly selling Highguard to my friend by complaining about how unexpectedly demanding it was to get acquainted with. But, after getting over the initial bump relatively quickly, it felt like my long-lost Apex Legends muscle memory was kicking in with each gunfight. Highguard isn't the easiest game to get into, but stick with it and you'll find that it nails its high-intensity firefights, whether you're on the offensive during a raid or battling to protect your besieged keep.

After one team impales the almighty Shieldbreaker sword into the enemy base's dome shield, the fight seamlessly transitions to a smaller arena map and asymmetrical format. Gunfights become lightning-fast close-quarters affairs where movement and positioning are far more important as each team tries to assault or hold ground. Since only the attackers have limited lives, I like how it's impossible for these fights to devolve into either team simply hunting down the enemy as in Rainbow Six Siege or Call of Duty's staple Search and Destroy mode – the attackers must play the objective to win, either by detonating two generators or the vital Anchor Stone deep within the enemy's base.

These raids are also where your Warden's powers really come into their own thanks to the tighter spaces and destructible environments. Scarlet demonstrates this best with her highly synergistic kit that can be used smartly to run circles around the enemy team and massively help your own. It's incredibly satisfying to combine her invisibility and Shifting Sands passive, which lets her turn a solid wall into a sandy gateway, to get behind the unsuspecting enemy and launch a volley of whirling blades.

However, with Wildlight Entertainment's development team comprising former Respawn Entertainment developers, a first-person hero shooter that feels good is effectively the bare minimum for them. While it's excellent that Highguard meets these high standards, it's less a nice surprise and more a meeting of expectations.

Old guard

After a week of playing, it's clear that, while Highguard has glimmers of greatness that remind me why Respawn Entertainment's shooters are so good, there's a litany of odd design decisions that hamstring its potential. The initial base-securing phase in every match feels like it's lacking, with wall reinforcements and repairs being the sole defensive measures your team can deploy. Compare that to the much more prominent gear-up phase which mostly feels like looting for the sake of looting, unnecessarily delaying the Shieldbreaker's appearance and therefore the start of the action – it has a very "eat your vegetables before dessert" feel.

Highguard's maps are also just far too big for the intended 3v3 team size, with matches often feeling barren outside of raids. I put some time into the hurried out "experimental" 5v5 raid mode that's been available since the game's first weekend, and while it felt like an improvement, I found matches were often far more drawn out – though I do think 4v4 could be the sweet spot. But an increased player count also doesn't help with the painfully long respawn times and sometimes lengthy runbacks to the action, even atop your speedy steed.

Perhaps most importantly is the fact that Highguard's identity just isn't all that strong. As unfortunately demonstrated by the reception to its reveal at The Games Awards 2025, I'm clearly not the only one who's indifferent to the game's setting and aesthetic. The eponymous continent of Highguard is apparently meant to be this mythical, magical place, but the game's barren maps largely feel anything but – livening them up with more exciting Points of Interest or even some sort of PvE element is sorely needed.

Its roster of Warden characters is mechanically solid so far, with Mara, Atticus, and Scarlet quickly proving to be my favorites, but they're admittedly not the most charming or original bunch. I can't see Mara's eldritch witch attire with billowing sleeves as anything other than an English version of Moira from Overwatch, and Atticus is the embodiment of the game's slightly incongruous aesthetic of magic and guns that I'm going to call "tacti-cool fantasy". I also can't stop picturing Redmane and Scarlet's outfits as perfect skins for Apex Legends' Gibraltar and Wraith respectively.

It's clear that the developers at Wildlight Entertainment, spurred by their wealth of experience working on Apex Legends and its Arenas mode, have tried to catch lightning in a bottle once again, but fallen short this time. Highguard is a greatest hits mashup of first-person shooters from the last decade or so that is less than the sum of its parts. I can't help but feel that Wildlight lacks a guiding hand to rein in and refine bold ideas.

But, despite its clear flaws, Highguard is far from the failure that some would have you believe. Wildlight's debut shooter has demonstrated that it can replicate Respawn Entertainment's genre-defining first-person shooter gameplay to create a novel experience, and the studio has made it clear that it's committed for the long-run with Episodes that add new Wardens, maps, and more, as well already implementing changes in response to player feedback. Highguard might not be the next big thing and definitely needs serious improvements if it's to widen its appeal, but it's still solid shooter fun if you're willing to mount up and put in the hours.

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