Highguard Review – Warden of None

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Who is Highguard for?

To be honest, putting aside any criticism of games that constantly update, and acknowledging the incredible work involved – a team known for Titanfall 1 & 2 and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order spent four years with around 100 talented developers to create this game.

Who is Highguard for?

Does this game cater to players who like hero shooters but don’t care about strong characters or abilities? Or is it for those who enjoy tactical shooters with objectives like planting bombs and limited respawns? Maybe it’s aimed at battle royale fans who like exploring maps for loot. Actually, it seems to try and appeal to all of these groups – even arena shooter players, despite being a smaller 3v3 format.

Well, whoever that may be, they’re not playing Highguard.

Okay, let’s be real – the matchmaking in Highguard is seriously frustrating. I’ve been stuck waiting for a match way too many times because there just weren’t enough players online. You’d think the game would try harder to find someone, anyone, but it just sends me right back to the lobby. It’s not a laughing matter, honestly.

You’re on a three-person team with a goal: find the Shieldbreaker. Actually, you’ll mostly be waiting for it to appear, and that’s when the core gameplay of Highguard begins – gathering resources through mining.

Okay, I’ve been seeing a lot of people compare this game to Concord, and honestly, it kinda bugs me. They’re saying it’s not a good 5v5 competitive shooter, and they’re right, it’s not! It’s a 3v3 game without a real competitive scene, so you’re just gonna lose a lot. But it’s frustrating because the shooting feels really good, and the art style is amazing. If they’d just taken this same gameplay and art and made a single-player game, maybe with a co-op option, we could’ve had something genuinely fun.

So, after waiting four years, the game we finally got was Highguard. Honestly, it’s a PvP shooter where the team fights feel way too small – definitely not big enough for a proper dungeon in most MMOs. And, sadly, it looks like about 20% of the people who bought it on Steam are still playing after just one day.

Now that we’ve covered who isn’t a Highguard, let me explain what it is. You play as a Warden – think of a magic user who fights with guns. While I don’t expect Wildlight to fully embrace a gunslinger style, that’s the core idea. There are eight Wardens to choose from, and I only recall two names: Mara and Scarlet. Scarlet specializes in knives, can become invisible, and quickly get out of trouble. If you’ve played Jett from Valorant, you’ll understand – her abilities are almost identical, even resetting cooldowns after getting a kill.

Mara helps the team by providing extra shields and creating a respawn point, which can be a lifesaver when attempting to destroy the Anchor Stone. The other team members include a mysterious caped character with an unknown ability, a powerful beast who can easily break through walls, and a fire-based fighter who always wears a vest.

In Highguard, you’ll work with a team of three to find the Shieldbreaker – or, more accurately, wait for it to appear. This is when the core gameplay begins: mining. Mining gives you Vesper, the currency you’ll use to buy upgrades like weapons, accessories, and armor from the shopkeeper, Flynn. There’s also a timing element to mining that might seem frustrating, but mastering it lets you quickly destroy ore nodes with a powerful swing.

Here’s the key to winning: if your opponent always stays on defense and then sends their Shieldbreaker to attack you, you’ll likely win the game.

Unfortunately, firefights in this game are infrequent, likely only happening once or twice before the main objective kicks in. Having just two teams of three compete feels strange, and while it might work on a map like Bloodgulch, Highguard’s maps are simply too large. It’s easy to spend the entire match going one way and not encounter the opposing team until the final moments. Considering the size of the maps, the fact that I only witnessed one interesting random event – a power weapon drop that wasn’t even particularly impactful – makes me question the point of exploring.

This game mode seems geared towards players who prefer to avoid direct conflict and focus on gathering resources safely. It would be great to see PvE enemies or mini-bosses added that could reward players with valuable items like amulets, better shields, or unique weapons. Right now, the maps feel too empty and lifeless. Adding at least two more player teams and increasing the team size to 10v10, along with including more Shieldbreakers, would make the experience much more engaging and less repetitive. We need something to break up the monotony.

Anyway, getting off track for a moment… I’m really surprised by how poorly the team’s abilities work together when we’re fighting. Scarlet can be useful if you’re skilled with melee attacks, and Mara helps with extra revives and taking damage during raids. But generally, enemies can be defeated very quickly in each round. As soon as you build up some shields, powerful enemies start falling fast, meaning you die quicker and have to respawn to rejoin your team.

You’re wondering if this happens every round? Yes, it does. Once you get the Shieldbreaker and bring it to the enemy base to start a raid, a drawn-out fight begins. You can either damage their generators to slowly lower the base’s health, or destroy the Anchor Stone to instantly win the match. The defending team tries to stop you, while the attackers need to stay near a damaged generator to finish destroying it. If the defenders succeed, your own base takes damage, and then the next round starts – so you repeat the whole process again.

The game really ends when the enemy consistently protects their base, then sends their Shieldbreaker to attack yours – it’s game over. What’s even more frustrating is that during the fight for the sword, players can get stuck until one team wins, leaving you helpless as your last defender desperately tries to stop the enemy from destroying your base. It’s a dramatic, if somewhat annoying, conclusion after a lot of uneventful gathering of resources.

What’s the point of heavily fortifying something if it falls apart with just a little damage? It doesn’t make sense to waste resources on expensive rocket launcher rounds when a simpler weapon can achieve the same result.

Someone will probably suggest doing the same thing, and I think they’re right. However, it’s still a dull way for a match to finish, and it also makes it far too easy for one team to quickly gain a huge advantage over the other.

Beyond the strange design choices, unmemorable characters, and often tedious gameplay – matches could drag on for a painful 40 minutes – that’s pretty much all there is to Highguard. You can say what you like about Concord, but at least it offered several game modes at launch (even if I didn’t enjoy most of them). I haven’t talked much about the raid features, or the real-time destruction and building, because they feel like afterthoughts. What’s the point of reinforcing a structure if it’s so easily destroyed anyway? Why buy expensive rocket launcher ammo when I can break things just as well with a standard weapon?

It’s especially frustrating because the core shooting and movement mechanics aren’t bad. Even though the weapons themselves aren’t very exciting and there aren’t many different types, they actually feel pretty good to use when the mouse controls aren’t glitchy. I was surprised by how much more satisfying the guns felt to handle as you upgraded to better versions.

The way you move around the world feels great, too. Mounts appear and disappear instantly, and using a zipline with them is particularly smooth. Sliding also feels fluid and natural. However, there are still a few bugs – for example, activating Mara’s cloak while riding a horse once caused me to get stuck on a rock and fall to my death.

Despite sharing a similar style, the game’s environments are visually stunning. Each base has its own distinct layout and how you approach its objectives, with different themes adding to the variety. It’s really satisfying to watch the siege engine appear and methodically destroy the enemy base, though that feeling loses some impact when it happens repeatedly in a single match.

So, after everything, I have to ask again: what’s the point of Highguard? What does it actually bring to the table that other games don’t, besides awkwardly mashing together different shooter elements into something that’s ultimately just dull?

There are some performance trade-offs, though. Reports suggest the game uses forced anti-aliasing and limited post-processing, which can trigger upscaling even with DLSS enabled. Even at 1440p with medium settings – and my computer easily meets the recommended specs – the environmental textures and details didn’t look great. I ended up setting everything to high, but lowered the resolution to 1080p and capped the frame rate at 60 FPS to achieve a relatively stable experience. Still, everything felt blurry, and my computer’s fans were working very hard, even during simple scenes.

Highguard has a lot of optional in-game purchases, but it also includes a free battle pass where you can earn rewards using currency you get by playing. This is pretty standard for online multiplayer games, but I found the rewards came very slowly. After playing for 40 minutes, I only earned 80 of the in-game currency, and a single item costs 400. Because of this slow pace, I don’t plan on spending another two and a half hours grinding just to unlock more items, even though there are other ways to earn the currency.

So, after considering everything, I have to ask again: what’s the point of Highguard? What does it actually bring to the table that’s new or interesting? Right now, it just feels like a confusing mix of shooter elements that ends up being dull, not exciting.

This game was reviewed on PC.

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2026-01-28 22:49