It's Clear Why It Took Highguard 20 Hours To Lose 90% Of Its Players

Wildlight Entertainment formed in 2022 and has been working on its first AAA game for years. The publisher's team includes developers from games like "Titanfall" and "Apex Legends," so fans spent years anticipating the studio's top-secret debut title. But after getting a look at the free-to-play "Highguard" right at the end of the 2025 Game Awards, some gamers thought Wildlight was about to give us the next "Concord" disaster.

It turns out that "Highguard" was meant to be a shadow drop like "Apex Legends," but that plan changed at the last minute when Game Awards executive producer and host Geoff Keighley approached Wildlight before the 2025 event. The team hurried to put a trailer together, but the result didn't leave gamers inspired. Instead of making an excuse for the flop, Wildlight cofounder Chad Grenier owned up to the mistake in an interview with Kotaku, saying, "I wish the reception had been better, but in hindsight we made a trailer to entertain really quickly, and didn't show the gameplay loop, and what's different and unique." The studio later gave fans a more in-depth look at the game and hoped that when "Highguard" launched, players would see what made it so special.

On launch day, tens of thousands opted to check out what "Highguard" had to offer, but the vast majority of them abandoned the game quickly. The game's concurrent player count on Steam, which peaked at just under 100,000, has already plunged 90%, and user reviews across platforms aren't looking good. It's obvious that "Highguard" has some serious issues that need to be addressed.

Not long after its launch, "Highguard" was battered by mostly negative reviews on Steam. The complaints about the game from PC players ran along similar lines as the criticisms from gamers on Xbox and PlayStation 5. As is often the case with multiplatform releases, though, "Highguard" has run into some particular performance issues on PC.

Reviews on Steam have called out the game's poor optimization and say that it struggles to actually make use of their PC hardware. Some players say that even with hyper-modern hardware running the game at its maximum settings, they can't get "Highguard" to run at 90 frames per second. Others are dealing with input lag that makes the game difficult to play. Worst of all are the bugs that some players have experienced which prevent them from loading into the game at all. 

Players don't want to have to tweak their own computers to get a game to run properly, so some of them are simply washing their hands of "Highguard" and walking away when they encounter these problems.

Strong mechanics are what really matter in a game, but graphics are what most players are going to notice first. Unfortunately for "Highguard," many Day 1 players weren't all that impressed by what they saw. Performance issues caused some PC players to experience subpar graphics, but even when the game was running as intended, there were visual problems bothering players. 

Complaints about the game's motion-blur effects, which can't be toggled off, are rampant in "Highguard" reviews. Gamers almost universally agree that the blur is too strong and makes the entire game look fuzzy and out of focus. But players aren't just bothered by minor effects like motion blur. Plenty of them just didn't like the game's approach to graphics at all. One Xbox player wrote in a review that their "Highguard" experience "felt like I was playing 'Black Desert' back in 2022." 

Other players have gone to the internet to attack the game's overall fantasy/sci-fi art direction, and they didn't mince words. "The game's art direction is a travesty, and nowhere near its competition's level," wrote one Redditor, calling attention to other free-to-play shooters like "Apex Legends" as a comparison. The internet seems extra-enthusiastic about attacking the visuals of "Highguard," but there's no denying that the game has failed to impress players on that front.

Players can find a way to get past underwhelming visuals, and developers can repair bugs and performance problems, but the core game mechanics are more difficult to fix. To its credit, "Highguard" tries to remix mechanics from other popular free-to-play titles, and has a unique approach. The game has resource gathering and mount mechanics like 2024's surprise hit, "Palworld," but it also mixes in hero shooter mechanics and "Apex Legends"-style gunplay in its 3-v-3 Raid Mode gameplay.

For some players the remix approach the game takes with its mechanics falls entirely flat. "Nothing clicks, they have poached a bunch of systems from games that work well within those games but when shoved together just don't make much sense at all," wrote one player in a review on Steam. At times "Highguard" feels like it's trying to be multiple games at once, and players don't think it's working.

There's one specific gameplay issue that keeps coming up in negative player reviews across all platforms. People don't love that "Highguard" is only 3-v-3. Players want to be able to be in a team with more of their friends, and they say the game's maps are too big for the small team battles that "Highguard" currently has on offer. The large maps massively slow down the game, making it harder to get to the parts of "Highguard" that are actually enjoyable.

"Highguard" is off to a rocky start. Free-to-play games live or die based on the size of their playerbase, and the competitive multiplayer space is especially competitive. Similar games lost their entire playerbase in 2025 because they couldn't cut it. Right now it seems like gamers are more likely to bounce off "Highguard" than stick around, but the game's launch has been so rough that more people than ever are actually starting to pay attention to it.

If some gamers decide to check out what the fuss is about for themselves, there's a chance they'll see some of the good in "Highguard" beneath its flaws. Video game reviewers have been somewhat impressed: Polygon praised the game, and in its pre-release review, IGN said that the game "had polished gunplay, a compelling roster of characters, and a trailblazing game mode that serves as its killer feature."

Some real-life players have been enjoying "Highguard" too. While many are bothered by the small team size, they're finding the actual combat in the game to be pretty fun. Players have also praised the gunplay in "Highguard" and really enjoy the mount system. "You can ride a bear into battle. Don't know about y'all but that's a selling point for me," wrote one Redditor. Wildlight Entertainment has revealed a detailed roadmap for the game's future, and if the studio addresses some of the concerns players have expressed, "Highguard" might be able to find its footing.