Highguard Steam Reviews Turn Mostly Negative as Wildlight CEO Owns “Poor” Game Awards Trailer
Wildlight Entertainment’s PvP raid shooter Highguard is already facing serious headwinds in its first days on the market, with Steam user sentiment trending sharply downward and the studio leadership stepping forward to address what went wrong with the game’s initial mainstream reveal. The free to play shooter launched yesterday on PC and consoles, and while it quickly reached a peak of roughly 97,000 concurrent players on Steam, that early spike did not translate into goodwill, momentum, or confidence in the core experience. With Steam user reviews now sitting at Mostly Negative and roughly 32 percent of reviews recommending the game, Highguard is moving into damage control mode faster than any live service team wants.
A big part of the conversation is context. Highguard was unveiled as the final trailer at Geoff Keighley’s The Game Awards 2025, and the reception to that reveal was already mixed, with many viewers unclear on what Highguard was actually trying to be. In an interview with PC Gamer, Wildlight CEO and founder Dusty Welch acknowledged that the studio did not communicate the game’s hook effectively and said the responsibility sits with the team. Welch explained that while the studio aimed to match the entertainment focused tone of The Game Awards, they should have prioritized clarity and better showcased the unique gameplay loop that defines Highguard. In short, the studio is treating the trailer as a positioning miss rather than a community misunderstanding, and that is an important signal for players watching whether the team is willing to learn quickly.
But the bigger issue is not the trailer. Now that players have hands on time, the criticism is centered on fundamental design and technical execution. One of the most common complaints is that the maps feel too large for the current 3v3 structure, creating downtime, long rotations, and stretches of gameplay where engagement density drops. Many users argue the experience would make more sense at 5v5 or even 10v10, suggesting that Highguard’s current match format is misaligned with its space, travel flow, and pacing expectations. At the same time, PC performance and optimization complaints are also surfacing. Highguard runs on Unreal Engine 5, and the early perception from players is that the game needs stronger performance tuning to avoid becoming another cautionary tale where technical friction overwhelms the gameplay pitch.
From a market strategy perspective, this is a critical moment. Live service shooters can recover, but only if the studio moves with urgency and credibility. That means fast patches, transparent communication, and a willingness to revisit matchmaking formats and map scale assumptions. Highguard’s core challenge is simple: it must convert curiosity into loyalty, and right now the early adopters are signaling that the experience is not meeting the value promise. The good news for Wildlight is that the team is at least acknowledging mistakes publicly, which is often the first step in rebuilding trust. The next step is execution.
Do you think Highguard can turn this around with faster optimization and larger team modes, or is the core loop misaligned with what players want from a PvP raid shooter in 2026?
