Throughout the history of the game awards, the final game trailer always had the biggest reveal and the most hype, but this year was different. The final game reveal was lackluster and received poorly by the community, with the game highguard as the reveal. The game was released, and within an hour, the game already had an overwhelmingly negative rating on Steam, with some people calling it Concord 2 (a game that was shut down 2 weeks after launch).
With all of the hate going on about Highguard, you have to ask yourself whether Highguard deserves the hate. To find out, I decided to play the game for 10 hours to get a grasp of it, but first, you should know how a typical game of Highguard goes. As the game starts, you are given a grace period to prepare your base by “reinforcing” (making walls harder to destroy). After the preparation phase, you are tasked with getting gear by upgrading, buying, or finding loot containers. Once you have found gear, you must obtain “The Shieldbreaker” (the item required to raid the opponent’s base). This typically results in teams fighting to acquire it. After a team has got The Shieldbreaker, they must use it at the enemy base to start a raid, where they must destroy objectives while the defending team tries to stop them. The entire process repeats until one team destroys enough objectives.
One immediate issue with the game is its large map. In my first match, the only time I ever saw the enemy was on the objective, The Shieldbreaker, and when we raided their base. The large map makes it hard for fights to happen naturally, so most of the time the game is decided while the teams are fighting over The Shieldbraker. Thankfully, the size of the map is greatly mitigated with your mounts (rideable pets that let you move around quickly) and built-in ziplines that also help move across large distances.
Another problem I noticed with the game is how difficult it is to come back after being raided. Typically, the team that raids the opponent first wins, as the respawn times are decently long, and once you die, the enemy gets more time to get higher-tier loot.
The game is not all bad, though I think that its gunplay is very nice, and it’s not impossible to win 3v1’s. I also think the revival mechanic works very well, as it’s not impossible to revive a teammate during a fight, but it also puts you in a vulnerable position. Another thing I think the game does well is how it handles its heroes’ abilities, as they are not crazy overpowered in fights and relatively balanced.
There are a few things that could help this game a lot. For example, if I could change anything about the game, I would make a 6v6 or 5v5 game mode so the map is more crowded and fights happen more, and losing a teammate doesn’t mean you lose the fight. If some more changes like this are added, I think the game would be very popular.
In conclusion, I think that Highguard is a good game, and that it was judged by the community too quickly, with its gunplay, abilities, and unique premise. I believe that it has lots of potential. The reason it has so many bad reviews is that it was overhyped during the Game Awards, making people extra stingy about its faults.
