Highguard arrived with a half baked shadow drop on January 26th, 2026, cresting 97,249 concurrent Steam players within an hour of launch. Which is a massive turnout for Wildlight Entertainment's free-to-play PvP raid shooter from ex-Apex Legends and Titanfall devs. Later that evening, numbers halved; now, two days in, live count hovers around 10,000 with a 24-hour peak of 19,296 which is an 80% drop signaling trouble. Steam's verdict? "Mostly Negative," in reviews with just 37% positive from over 20,000 reviews. It's the talk of many gaming circles, but not in a good light.
Players have vented about brutal queues (10+ minutes solo), tutorial kicks stranding newcomers, and performance woes with frame drops even on beast rigs, forcing low settings/DLSS just for 60 FPS stability. Xbox fares worse at ~2.9/5 (31% 5-stars, 39% 1-stars), PS5 slightly better at 3.05/5 from 6,200 ratings (41% 5-stars, 37% 1-stars). Complaints echo: no custom button mapping/FOV slider on consoles, hitreg feedback is lacking ("kill screen says 25 hits but no feel"), and premade stomps ruining solo play.
Review bombing's the elephant or raid boss in the room that Highguard is facing. Highguard's TGA 2025 finale slot (eye-candy trailer, with zero gameplay) ignited fury: "Titanfall 3 died for this," "another live-service slop." Backlash and hate predates the game launch, with Reddit threads likening it to Sony's 2024 flop Concord: "Highguard's suffering because Concord came first." X memes amplify the roast performance as well.
On our review we gave it a little more kinder scoring with a 7.0/10 and acknowledging that it is not perfect and needs a lot of work, however it has a lot of great ideas and some good things going for it. Pro previews praise the hook idea of it: 3v3 raids blending CS bomb sites, Apex movement/gunplay, Valorant agents in mythical arenas loot horses, build bases, storm cores. Persistent loadouts and dynamic Wardens (customizable via cores) shine in squad play.
Wildlight dropped a first-year roadmap January 26th on release they are planning a cadence of a new Warden every two months (Marvel Rivals pace), but no fresh mode til July with LTMs, balance passes, anti-cheat sooner. The devs acknowledge issues, promising hotfixes this week. The Store page quietly scrubbed "creators of Apex/Titanfall" mentions, dodging legacy baggage.
It's day three hype's cooled, but F2P forgiveness is real if patches land. Squads report fun in the chaos, but solos bounce hard. In a post Concord shooter graveyard, Highguard's raid gimmick could carve a niche... Time and retention will tell us if Wildlight turns the tide.