Highguard was the surprise ‘one more thing’ game shown at the end of The Game Awards 2025, a new free-to-play, PvP ‘raid shooter’ from Wildlight Entertainment, a studio made up of former Titanfall 2 and Apex Legends developers, all joining together to launch their own first-person shooter.
Today, the new shooter went live across PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5, following a 25-minute gameplay and launch showcase, with founder, studio head, and game director Chad Grenier and design and creative director Jason McCord taking players through the ins and outs of Highguard, and what exactly the studio means when it calls the game a ‘raid shooter.’
The basics of Highguard are that it is a 3v3 first-person shooter, where two teams of three start on either end of one of the five available maps at launch, each in one of six base types. The objective of the game is to acquire a big magical sword called the Shieldbreaker, to break down the shield protecting the enemy base. Once the shield is down, you then have to work your way through the enemy base and destroy three generators to destroy the entire base and win the match.
You play as a Warden, one of eight magical characters, each with their own unique abilities that shake up combat in various ways, equipping yourself with one of ten weapons on top of one of three stronger, limited-use Raid weapons. Being a Warden also leads to one of Highguard’s other wrinkles, the fact that you travel across the map not on foot, but on one of three mounts, which are a horse, a panther, and a bear.
Essentially, Highguard is a whole mish-mash of game types, distilled into something new with its own twists. Capturing and keeping control of the Shieldbreaker is a bit of Capture the Flag, while the larger-scale maps and boxes of loot that can be found across them, each packed with better weapons and armour, feel like it pulls from popular battle royale titles, namely Apex Legends in this case. And because you’re planting bombs that can be defused by enemy players if you’re not careful, the attacking and defending of bases is like adding a touch of Search and Destroy.
Highguard’s placement as the final game revealed at The Game Awards 2025 meant that there was a lot of discussion around the game, namely around whether it was the right choice of title to end the show. But also because players weren’t entirely clear on what kind of game Highguard is trying to be.
We’ll have a better understanding of how players are reacting to Highguard as the week goes on, now that the game is live. On Steam, it got off to a fairly strong start, reaching 97K concurrent players in just its first hour on Steam alone.
Regarding what’s next, Wildlight has a roadmap for the whole of 2026 already planned out, with more Wardens, bases, weapons, maps, mounts, and more set to arrive as soon as next month.