The Daily Populous Wednesday January 28th, 2026 night edition
Authored by clawsomegamer.com and submitted by Darth_Vaper883

Following all sorts of controversies, Highguard has just been released on Steam. Although the game’s day-one player counts are showing potential for now, it seems player reception is an entirely different story.

Over on Steam, the game has accumulated its first reviews. Highguard presents a unique spin on the first-person shooter genre, but reviews suggest Wildlight Entertainment’s work is not the most impressive for the average player.

At the time of writing, the game has been out for just over an hour and has accumulated nearly 2,000 Steam reviews.

Of the reviews on the platform, over 80% are negative, earning the first-person shooter a ‘Mostly Negative‘ rating on the platform. The reviews discuss a myriad of aspects related to the first-person shooter, including performance, gameplay, and forced kernel access for the anti-cheat.

Many Steam players believe the 3v3 format does not work too well for Highguard. They point out that the maps are too large for the style of gameplay Wildlight Entertainment has chosen, suggesting that 5v5 would have been a more viable alternative.

On the other hand, some have highlighted how the game runs poorly on PC. For instance, one user stated that Highguard delivered 120 FPS at low settings with 80% resolution scaling on an RTX 4080 Super. Similarly, another user shared that the title ran at 150 FPS when using low settings and 720p resolution on an RTX 3080.

“120 FPS barely at low settings 80% res 1440p is crazy with a 4080 Super, performance should be the first priority in a shooter, not last.”

Because Highguard saw an influx of players immediately after it went live, it appears many players were also unable to log in and play the first-person shooter. As a result, many cite crashes and queue times in their negative reviews.

All in all, the game’s perception does not appear to have improved for the better compared to initial impressions after the debut trailer at The Game Awards. Perhaps players will warm up to the first-person shooter as time goes on, but most people on Steam don’t appear too impressed for now.

PelerinSablier on January 26th, 2026 at 23:27 UTC »

Game is boring. 3v3 is such a bad call, tbf it will be way more fun with 5v5 or 10v10, map and fort are big empty places

VR_Raccoonteur on January 26th, 2026 at 23:22 UTC »

Wait this is a 3 vs 3 game? I only looked at the trailer briefly, but It looked kinda like Team Fortress 2 but with a lot of terrain between the bases. Which would suggest large numbers of players.

FlashPost01 on January 26th, 2026 at 23:07 UTC »

Im not on PC, played it for a little bit and can the shortcomings from a mile away...

Its not fun to play Im afraid...

I hope it finds an audience but its not the next big thing thats for damn sure