The recently released Highguard got off to a rough start, as anticipation around its silent approach to marketing ultimately saw it become the victim of expectations and exposure. Steam player counts dropped sharply and thousands of negative reviews were left within hours of the game launching, even by those who didn’t play for longer than an hour. Now however, it’s the first weekend since launch, and Highguard is already trying to pivot to the requests of its players.
For a limited time only, Highguard is adding a 5v5 Raid Mode in its experimental playlist. Seemingly a direct response to fan complaints with the patch notes explicitly stating “we heard the feedback”, smaller match sizes were a core issue for many Highguard players on launch. Increasing match sizes from 3v3 to 5v5, even for a limited time, gives players exactly what they asked for. With this, the Steam review score has also began to rise.
Just a few hours from launch, the onslaught of negative reviews left Highguard in the “Mostly Negative” review bracket, but the steady stream of reviews from players who played more than an hour have caused the score to increase. With 42% of over 24,000 reviews currently positive, Highguard now sits in the “Mixed” category. The majority of recent reviews are positive ones, praising its gunplay, more relaxed vibe and with many also calling out the negative reviews as being unfair based on their low play times.
Yesterday’s 5v5 update also added a new base named Soul Well, along with much-needed optimizations for PC. The PC tweaks to animation performance, projectiles and other gameplay systems are aiming to improve performance on select PCs. A motion blur toggle has also been added for PC and console, with console players also receiving a new anisotropic materials toggle too.
