Highguard launched final night time as deliberate, and met with large Steam concurrents but additionally a flood of unfavorable person evaluations.
The free-to-play “PvP raid shooter” was the massive new recreation reveal on the finish of final month’s The Recreation Awards, however developer Wildlight then went darkish till the sport’s January 26 launch date. Highguard hit a peak of 97,249 concurrent customers on Steam — a major quantity for any new recreation launch on Valve’s platform — however Wildlight shall be notably involved by its “largely unfavorable” person evaluation score.
At the moment, simply 32% of the 14,500 person evaluations are constructive. Whereas a few of the unfavorable evaluations revolve round PC efficiency issues, most criticize Highguard’s recreation design, and query a few of the selections made by the builders.
Chief among the many criticisms is that the dimensions of the map feels too large and empty for a 3v3 aggressive shooter. You’re capable of summon a mount to get about sooner (the mounts are one side of Highguard that gamers appear to universally like), however some gamers consider a 4v4, 5v5, and even 3v3v3 mode would have been a greater match.
There are complaints in regards to the resource-gathering part of every map, too, which entails what some are calling boring mining and loot farming. The gist right here is there may be an excessive amount of downtime and an absence of pleasure, though gamers appear to be having fun with the raid part of every match, the place fight is concentrated. There’s additionally criticism of the playable characters, that are differentiated solely by two skills every on a cooldown. Some are calling Highguard’s visuals bland, too.
Certainly, the highest submit on the Highguard subreddit reinforces this sentiment. “I’m sorry however that is boring as f**okay,” it reads. “Gathering is boring as f**okay, looting is boring as f**okay, 3v3 with quick TTK is boring as f**okay. No PVE is boring as f**okay. The one good factor on this recreation is the f***ing horse mount. What had been they pondering?”
The Steam portion of Highguard’s launch doesn’t inform the entire story, in fact. It additionally launched as a free obtain on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Sequence X and S, however neither Sony nor Microsoft make participant numbers public.
Right here’s how Highguard works. You play a Warden in a group of three, and choose a base to fortify. You then journey out into the map to loot and harvest assets, upgrading your gear alongside the best way.
Groups find yourself combating over what’s referred to as the Shieldbreaker, which can be utilized to set off a raid of the enemy base. This part — definitely probably the most thrilling within the match — forces groups to assault and defend. Normally, one raid isn’t sufficient to destroy the enemy base, which triggers a brand new loot part, a brand new Shieldbreaker to spawn, and the potential for a brand new raid to lastly finish the match. Try IGN’s Highguard review-in-progress to seek out out what we expect.
Yesterday, Wildlight talked about Highguard’s first 12 months of content material already being within the works, and outlined its roadmap for updates. It’s making all the precise noises about being on this for the lengthy haul. As a free-to-play recreation, Highguard’s success will relaxation on its means to get as many individuals as doable to proceed to play the sport, fueling income from its dwell service. As we’ve seen, dwell service is a very brutal house to be in proper now, so it will likely be fascinating to see if Highguard can enhance this launch sentiment and preserve curiosity within the months forward.
Wesley is Director, Information at IGN. Discover him on Twitter at @wyp100. You may attain Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].