Highguard Review: I Can’t Get Enough of Horseback Gunplay and Raiding Bases

I used to be hurtling throughout a fantasy panorama on horseback with my two companions, racing towards the enemy base with the opposing staff sizzling on our heels, a magic sword on my again that may win us the match, and all I might suppose was, Hell sure, this guidelines. I spent your entire day gleefully queuing again into extra classes to recapture that second. 

At an occasion in Los Angeles, I bought to play Highguard days forward of its launch. Whereas I walked into the preview with no clue about what the sport was, 8 hours later, I used to be extra hyped for this shooter than any I would performed since Apex Legends (2019). That is becoming, as lots of the builders at Highguard are veterans of Apex studio Respawn who left to kind a brand new firm, Wildlight Leisure, and make one thing fully new.

Followers could know Highguard from its reveal at The Sport Awards in an admittedly confusing trailer. In a number of conversations in the course of the preview, Wildlight builders acknowledged that the trailer did not correctly signify their sport, however they’re assured that gamers will change their tune as soon as they get their arms on the sport, which is out there now and free to play on PS5, Xbox Sequence X and PC. It has full cross-play and cross-progression, too. 

I would be shocked if these builders aren’t confirmed proper. Wildlight faces a nigh-impossible process in explaining their sport in a trailer. Broadly, Highguard is a multiplayer shooter that teeters on the sting of chaos however blends components of various video games right into a fastidiously refined dish of palate-pleasing novelty. With components of Apex Legends, Valorant, Rainbow Six: Siege and League of Legends, Highguard is an amalgam with few rivals in its lane.

As an off-the-cuff shooter fan with a whole bunch of hours every in Future 2 and Apex Legends, I discovered Highguard’s squad-based gameplay to be proper up my alley. In the course of the eight matches I performed in my preview, I picked up the sport fairly shortly and completed the day desirous to queue up for extra. 

Wildlight plans to add dozens of movies explaining every of the sport’s elements, from its Warden hero courses (eight at launch) to weapons to maps to bases. But it surely’s not almost as difficult because it sounds on paper — all because of numerous design iteration because the studio spent the final 4 years making their impressed Frankenstein of a multiplayer sport.

What makes Highguard the world’s first Raid Shooter

For lack of a correct multiplayer descriptor, Wildlight invented its personal: Raid Shooter. This combines first-person capturing, the lane skirmishing of MOBAs and the bottom raiding of video games like Rainbow Six: Siege. 

At launch, there’s solely a single mode within the sport, Raid, that pits a pair of three-person groups towards one another. Matches on this mode final between 15 and 25 minutes (or shorter if both staff steamrolls). Every match loops a set of 4 phases, every time-limited to maintain matches flowing. Belief me, these loops will really feel like second nature after a couple of matches.

Earlier than every match begins, gamers choose their Warden, every a definite hero with totally different passive, tactical and supreme talents (very like Apex Legends). Squads then vote on their choose from 4 totally different bases (of six at launch, with extra coming). That is what they’re going to defend from enemy raiding, every with a distinct structure higher suiting some Wardens and play kinds over others. Consider it like choosing between Cinderella’s Fortress, Helm’s Deep or Fortress Dracula, which slot into the sport’s maps. (Gamers solely get to decide on their base, not the bigger map, for every match.)

As soon as the match begins, the primary part begins, giving gamers a minute to fortify their base’s partitions, which could be destroyed with gunfire or instruments. When the bottom’s protect opens, the gear part begins. Squads have 2 minutes to journey out into the broader map to select up extra highly effective variations of the weapons they select at launch, in addition to discover armor and mine minerals to spend at retailers.

Whereas squads are free to combat one another at any time in that second part, the third part shoves groups collectively in a real brawl. After a visual countdown, a particular sword drops down for each squads to combat over. The Shieldbreaker, because the blade is known as, have to be delivered to the enemy staff’s base and slammed into the sting of its protect to crack it open. 

As soon as the Shieldbreaker is deployed, the fourth part — the Raid — begins. A siege tower emerges from a portal the place the Shieldbreaker was stabbed into the enemy base and slams into the protect till it splits aside. Then the attacking staff invades the bottom of the defending staff, looking for to burn it down. 

Every base has 100 hit factors. By deploying the Shieldbreaker, attacking gamers deal 30 injury to the enemy base, however to complete it off, they’ve two choices: deploy bombs at two mills on the periphery of the bottom to deal 35 base injury apiece, or go for broke and plant explosives on the Anchor Stone, which takes longer to destroy, however will immediately win the sport if detonated. Defenders can defuse bombs, forcing attackers to plant them once more, however the Raid part lasts only some minutes; if the protection is profitable and nothing is destroyed, the attackers’ base is dealt 30 injury as punishment.

After that, the phases restart: construct your base again up, discover extra gear, combat over the Shieldbreaker and begin a Raid. To amp up the strain, every new loop will increase the rarity of the weapons you will discover, rising their lethality through quicker reloading and firing speeds. Gold-colored legendary weapons are considerably deadlier — one we coveted in the course of the preview, a revolver, allows you to fan the hammer to fireplace blindingly shortly. 

As a result of there aren’t any different sport modes at launch, it lives or dies on how a lot that gameplay appeals to gamers. On paper, it is a sampler platter of components from different video games. In observe, every part flows so easily into the following that you simply’d by no means guess it had ever resembled anything. 

However from the Wildlight builders’ perspective, that is the terminus of an extended, lengthy journey determining how all these disparate items work collectively.

Years of chipping away to get to the Raid Shooter’s remaining kind

I joined a gaggle interview amongst a number of different journalists on the preview to speak with Jason Torfin, vice chairman of product and publishing at Wildlight, in addition to a author on the sport and Mohammad Alavi, the sport’s lead designer. 

Each are veterans of Respawn and described quite a lot of classes realized from shock launching Apex Legends in 2019 on the identical day it was introduced. As destiny would have it, Highguard is launching almost seven years to the day after that launch. Except for fixing bugs and points that inevitably crop up, they defined how they’ve honed their manufacturing pipeline to reliably get out new content material. In the course of the preview, the staff shared a roadmap for brand spanking new “episode” seasons, coming each two months, every that includes a brand new Warden and map. 

Stay-service video games like Highguard retain gamers by releasing extra content material over time. By exhibiting a transparent plan for the months forward, Wildlight hopes to construct belief with the sport’s participant base that they’re going to maintain supporting and including to Highguard, retaining their curiosity amongst stiff competitors from established multiplayer titles like Arc Raiders, Battlefield 6, Helldivers 2 and Overwatch.

Wildlight has different pointers to construct participant belief. In-game gadgets are all beauty and will not supply gameplay benefits. Whereas monetization is important for a free-to-play sport to remain afloat, Highguard’s retailer at launch can have gadgets from the $9 battle pass-like Battle Chest bundles of cosmetics to $20 unique mounts. Battle Chests will not expire and could be purchased any time after they’re launched. Gamers who do not need to spend cash can nonetheless earn cosmetics by weekly and seasonal challenges. 

On prime of that, each new Warden, weapon, base and map is free for all gamers. As Torfin defined, the staff needs to verify the sport respects gamers’ money and time, which he says not all stay service video games competing for consideration do. 

Raid will not essentially be Highguard’s solely mode. The roadmap we have been proven had limited-time modes, just like the just-for-fun ones that popped up in Apex Legends, Torfin stated. These might result in everlasting choices. Over the course of growing Highguard, there have been quite a lot of gameplay concepts that did not work, however may very well be revisited and make it right into a limited-time mode. Typically these are “sugar junk meals that you simply simply want for per week,” Torfin stated in response to a different journalist’s query. Different occasions, they’re participating sufficient to turn out to be actual additions.

Highguard is a multiplayer-only sport, however there’s a background story that is seeded by merchandise descriptions and product bundles that gamers can piece collectively. In response to a different journalist’s query, Torfin described that “the world of Highguard is itself a personality,” a continent that reappeared like Atlantis after 300 years of absence. Two weeks after the sport launches, its second episode of content material will drop, together with the primary inklings of story that may proceed to be added alongside new maps and wardens. Finally, Wildlight needs to department out to different media to proceed telling the story in comics, novels, animated shorts and so forth.

Attending to the Raid mode we see right now, Highguard’s first and to this point solely method to play, was an extended course of. At one level, the sport pitted 4 three-player groups towards one another, but it surely wasn’t enjoyable to have your base raided whereas out attacking one other squad’s empty dwelling turf. And slicing the staff rely in half to only dueling squads did not resolve the difficulty. To attract gamers towards one another, builders innovated a “lock and key” mechanic to give attention to one base at a time to start raiding — and why not make it a rad magic sword?

Lots of refinement got here from the Wildlight builders’ aggressive urge. Initially, the bases did not have a well being bar, and each wall wanted to be pulled down, and Torfin recalled an inner match that lasted 4 hours till the servers broke. However each choice led to creating a sport with “quite a lot of aggressive integrity,” he stated. Which means making the sport truthful and balanced, one thing that is simple to get into however onerous to grasp, Alavi famous. However for sweatier gamers, there will probably be a Ranked model of Raid mode coming two weeks after launch, which is able to let gamers take a look at their mettle as they fight climbing aggressive ranks.

However what concerning the reverse viewers — will the sport’s complexity be an excessive amount of for informal gamers? I requested the builders whether or not I, who scraped collectively wins over my journalist counterparts however bought demolished by a staff of Wildlight’s finest inner gamers, would benefit from the sport.

“I suck at our sport, so I am proper there with you,” Alavi stated, laughing. And but, “we, the devs, play it continuously, and we come from all walks of how good we’re at shooters.”

Ranked mode will siphon off some sweaty gamers, Alavi stated, giving casuals a little bit of respiratory room. And there are many extra difficult components from video games that influenced Highguard which have been ignored, like League of Legends’ complicated merchandise recipes. Tactically, Highguard additionally contains a number of comeback mechanics designed to degree the taking part in subject. As a result of every part resets a part of the match, groups have repeated alternatives to let gamers gear again up and get one other go at profitable a Shieldbreaker combat. 

For example his level, Alavi recalled a match the place his staff was dropping 100 to 10, during which letting the enemy staff even get the Shieldbreaker would end in a loss. He purchased an merchandise to plant bombs quicker, picked up a legendary gun from a store, gained their phases to begin a raid and planted their bomb on the Anchor Stone earlier than the enemy staff knew what occurred. Increase! Alavi’s pleasure was infectious, a had-to-be-there second that I acknowledged from my very own mad horseback sprint to win my sport — one thing that Highguard appears refined to provide.

“Having these comeback mechanics is tremendous essential. Is it gonna occur each time? No,” Alavi stated. “However you already know, even simply getting that sugar excessive that one time retains me coming again for extra.”