Highguard; Geoff, are you high?

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FakeSympathy

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Well here we go. The next big game that Geoff has been hyping up. The game that has left so many people confused, and expecting to be the next Concord in terms of failure.

I was one of those people who expected the game to be terrible. And after playing a few matches, all I can say is....Really?

I really wanted to give objective feedbacks for this game. But I don’t think there is more to be said. The best way I can describe is try to imagine all the elements that you can think of that made certain pvp games popular, thrown into a blender, have the mix clone itself, fucked the clone, and spawn a crime against nature.

That is what highguard is.

On a more detailed breakdown, The general flow of each match goes something like this:
  1. Two teams start from the base. They reinforce the walls of the said base for defence.
  2. The map opens up, and everyone looks for randomized guns and gears.
  3. They can also mine crystals called vespers, and visit shops for armor upgrades, ammo, and etc.
  4. Sometimes, a special sword called shieldbreaker spawns. If you grab it, you are flagged by everyone in the map. And just like the namesake, you use it to disable shield of the enemy base, and spawn admittingly cool-looking siege machine to open up the base.
  5. Destroy the generators of the enemy base. You win!

The biggest issue that I have with the game is how the pace of the game collides with the map size. With ziplines, riding on mounts, and combat encounters that require quick reflexes, you’d think this is a fast-paced game. But the map is juuuusstt big enough to feel the encounters aren’t so close quarter. But then when you are on mounts and running across the map, it feels too small. Like, there were so many times that I overshot where I wanted to go because how fast the mounts were moving.

The wardens, or the heroes/operatives in this game, don’t feel special. They are so bland both in terms of gameplay and their personalities. You’ve seen their archetypes in plenty of other games.

The game was advertised to be from people who worked on Titanfall games and Apex Legend. Which is so weird, because if they have a solid foundation, why not take it to the next level? Instead, it feels like they are too scared to try something new.

IDK what Geoff was smoking when he was hyping up this game. Whatever he gets high off of I want some of that too, because it seems to nullify all the noises away.

HOWEVER, I can definitely see why some people would love this game. Like I said, it has the surface-level elements of all the popular competitive pvp games. If someone doesn't want to invest in learning complex mechanics, then this is it for them. Plus, it's f2p so anyone can drop it at anytime.

With the right maintenance and content release, I do think this game has a chance of becoming the next cultural phenomenon that will stay relevant for the said audience.

They released the roadmap for this game. Probably one of the most frequent content update plan that I've ever seen. It's an audacious plan, so much so that I don't have too much faith in the devs delivering all of these at high quality
 
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CriticalGaming

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Everything I am seeing and reading suggests this game is dumb as fuck. Like they've thrown a bunch of random elements into a bucket and hope together it makes a cake somehow.

Paired up with, like you said, bland and boring characters, I'm failing to see any potential "hook" for the game. Something to make Highguard the go-to game for X thing. It's just a generic shooter with random gameplay objectives that don't seem to mean anything.

Not to mention with the big maps and 3v3 team size, it doesn't feel like it could ever make for tight coordinated team moments. It doesn't make sense.
 

The Rogue Wolf

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Everything I am seeing and reading suggests this game is dumb as fuck. Like they've thrown a bunch of random elements into a bucket and hope together it makes a cake somehow.
That's what the trailer suggested, so... hurray for truthful promotional material?

3v3 team size
...wait, what? That's it? I had no intention of playing it anyway, but that seals the deal; I despise small-scale PvP games.
 

CriticalGaming

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That's what the trailer suggested, so... hurray for truthful promotional material?


...wait, what? That's it? I had no intention of playing it anyway, but that seals the deal; I despise small-scale PvP games.
It's also on Unreal 5 and is unoptimized as fuck,
 
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FakeSympathy

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The worst part, I feel, is the lack of lore or world-building. There is no codex/lore page.

You have NO IDEA on who these heroes are, where they come from, and what are their motives. You have no idea why these maps exist and their significance, or how and why the shieldbreaker sword flashes in and out of existence.

At least with Ovewatch or Concord, there were tons of world-building promo materials. At least with Destiny 1, there was the grimore that you need to access via browser (still sucked, but it was a collection of lore regardless).

Here, you have nothing other than the brief bio on the hero selection screen.

I think I expressed this plenty of times before, but I FUCKING HATE this trend. I mean if the game is blatantly trying to be a dumb fun game like Fall Guys or Fortnite, it doesn't really need a world-building. But here, the heroes and the maps tries to feel unique, but there is nothing for the players to be pulled in. Like, I genuinely don't know what destroying the enemy base achieves lore-wise.

No comment on the live-service store; You've seen the model before. Nothing new

As for the large player count, I think this is only natural for any new releases. We'll have to see whether people keeps coming back for it.
 
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FakeSympathy

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steamDB on the player count:

As of this post, it peaked at 97,249, then has dropped to 40,152.

Wouldn't it have made sense for the player count to go up, as more people get off from work/school? Or at least, the player count dropping at a slower rate?

For comparison, ARC raiders at launch had 264,673 at launch, and dropped to 254,486 by midnight that day
 
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meiam

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steamDB on the player count:

As of this post, it peaked at 97,249, then has dropped to 40,152.

Wouldn't it have made sense for the player count to go up, as more people get off from work/school? Or at least, the player count dropping at a slower rate?

For comparison, ARC raiders at launch had 264,673 at launch, and dropped to 254,486 by midnight that day
I've been thinking, it might be one of those game that does much better in other market, like how PUBG was super massive in china
 
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Brokencontroller

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I feel like a lot of the player count was mostly streamers and youtubers playing to make "worse game ever" review videos and now that they've finished the player count has crashed.
 

Hades

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I can't help but kinda pity the game. Its not a game I'd be interested in or one that's particularly good, but the discussion doesn't seem about that. From the very start it was about practically the whole internet wanted the game to fail and that nothing the devs could have said or done would be able to overcome this.

And I get it. Live service no one wanted, and one that also took the hype slot at the game award. I get the frosty reception. But the sheer hatred is probably a bit much.

Despite being a live service shooter it does look a bit more unique than Concord at least.
 

Casual Shinji

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I get the frosty reception. But the sheer hatred is probably a bit much.
Not when you account for the last 5 years. When you account for Sony wasting nearly this entire generation and some of their key studios chasing the live service trend. I mean, I'll feel bad for the developers, the coders, and visual designers who worked for years on this game that was doomed from the start. But the game itself getting burned to ash will hopefully function as a wake-up call to publishers to finally put this live service shit to rest.
 
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FakeSympathy

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16,135 active players now.

There are more people playing Skyrim SE, Civ 6, CS: Source, and even OW 2.

I can't help but kinda pity the game. Its not a game I'd be interested in or one that's particularly good, but the discussion doesn't seem about that. From the very start it was about practically the whole internet wanted the game to fail and that nothing the devs could have said or done would be able to overcome this.

And I get it. Live service no one wanted, and one that also took the hype slot at the game award. I get the frosty reception. But the sheer hatred is probably a bit much.

Despite being a live service shooter it does look a bit more unique than Concord at least.
It could've been improved more, have better marketing, and maybe even host a QnA or interview before releasing. A delay or maybe releasing at later date would've helped.

It really could've benefited from hosting beta and getting some feedbacks before launch. The 3v3 vs map size issue is the constant criticisms that I am seeing from legit reviews. I feel going from 3v3 to 6v6 shouldn't have been too much of a hassle (then again, I know jack shit about game development, so I wouldn't know).

Or maybe shadow-launch it, so that it doesn't get as shat on as right now.

Regardless, while most of the negative reviews do indeed not amount to anything, Geoff and the devs really shot themselves on the foot here.

FFS, they released developer commentary video AT LAUNCH


Their sentiments in the video is exactly why the core gameplay sucks; They just stapled together whatever they think is hip and cool from recent pvp games, and thought it would magically form something great.
 
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