The routine is familiar by now. A new online shooter with bright, colorful graphics launches and rockets up the charts despite the fact that you maybe haven’t even heard of it. Or maybe it just has a really forgettable name. But everyone seems to be talking about it, and it’s free, so you figure you may as well jump in. This moment of promise and anticipation may end up being the best this game will ever be — and there’s a good chance that feeling won’t last long.
I could be describing any number of games, but the most recent example is Highguard, which just launched on the PS5, Xbox, and Steam. The 3v3 shooter is the first release from Wildlight Entertainment, a new studio made up of veterans from Apex Legends, Titanfall, and Call of Duty. That pedigree is enough to pay some attention to the game, which was originally revealed as the final announcement at The Game Awards last month. But it’s also doing some interesting things. The developers call it a “raid shooter,” but I’ve found it easiest to understand as a sort of first-person shooter take on a MOBA like League of Legends; each team has a base, and your job is to balance getting improved gear, protecting your own base, and completing various objectives to take down your enemies’ HQ. Also, you can ride a bear.
It’s a complicated setup, and after a few matches I’m not entirely convinced I fully understand the flow of matches, which could be a problem for wider adoption. It’s certainly not as pick-up-and-play as something like Fortnite. Though as you’d expect from people who worked on Titanfall, the action feels great, with excellent gunplay and smooth movement. It’s also a hero shooter, so you pick from characters with Overwatch-style ultimate powers that can let you quickly turn a battle in your favor, or smash through your opponents’ defenses. They can be a lot of fun when you pull them off properly.
When you’re in the midst of a tight skirmish, defending your teammates while they try to defuse a bomb, the appeal of Highguard is apparent. At its best it’s fast and tense and forces you to be decisive. But its complex nature also means that things can feel a little strange and messy. For one thing, the team sizes are small yet the maps are large, and so you spend a good chunk of each match wandering around a mostly empty level searching for chests to improve your armor or find a better gun. You do have a mount to speed this up, but even still, I’ve found the early portions of matches to be incredibly slow and not very exciting.
As the ill-fated Concord showed, the most important thing for a new online shooter is what it does differently, although even that isn’t a guarantee of success. But you need a hook to compete in a space with such established players as Fortnite, Counter-Strike, and the annualized behemoth that is Call of Duty. Battlefield 6 managed to break through with sheer force of will, while the likes of Valorant, Helldivers 2, and Apex Legends have settled into a seemingly steady place where they aren’t the biggest games, but they have a strong, healthy player base. But the list of failures is also large: Anthem, Spectre Divide, XDefiant, Spellbreak, just to name a few. Many had interesting hooks — It’s Fortnite but fantasy! You can control two bodies at once! — but it wasn’t enough.
As much fun as I’m having with Highguard during the launch week, I’m also not convinced that its strategic matches, slick gunplay, and oddball fantasy setting are enough for lasting success in such a competitive space. It’s different, but not that different, and it can be hard to explain what it really is. The odds are certainly against it. So for now I’ll just enjoy the experience while it lasts — and be ready to do this all over again in March.