United Kingdom, Jan. 29 -- Game developers from across the industry have come to the defence of Highguard after Wildlight Entertianment's title faced fierce backlash at launch.

The free-to-play PvP raid shooter debuted this week after a surprise reveal at The Game Awards last month, followed by a near-silent run-up to its January 26, 2026 launch.

On Steam, Highguard peaked at just over 97,000 concurrent players - a strong showing for a new IP - but that early momentum was quickly undercut by a "mostly negative" user review score.

Player criticism has focused on the game's large, sparsely populated maps, long resource-gathering phases, performance issues on PC, and a perceived mismatch between its 3v3 format and the scale of its environ...