Highguard drew a large launch-day crowd, but its first Steam reviews were sharply negative. That label changed within days, and it describes a launch-time snapshot—not the game’s final status. Wildlight Entertainment later shut Highguard down on March 12, 2026, saying it had not built a sustainable player base.
What happened when Highguard launched?
Wildlight Entertainment released Highguard on January 26, 2026, as a free-to-play hero shooter built around a raid mode. SteamDB data reported by TechRadar showed a launch-day peak of 97,249 concurrent Steam players. That figure measures people playing at the same time at the peak; it is not a count of everyone who tried the game.
Early Steam user reviews were overwhelmingly negative, but the platform’s aggregate label moved over the following days. TechRadar reported a Mostly Negative score on January 27. By February 2, PCGamesN described the score as having moved from extremely negative through Mostly Negative toward Mixed. These are dated launch-era snapshots, not current Steam ratings.
Why were early reviews so negative?
The available coverage does not establish one cause for the reaction. A large launch audience and a poor early review label occurred together, but neither metric proves why players responded as they did.
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One point raised soon after launch was that the game’s distinctive play loop may not have been clear from its marketing. CEO and founder Dusty Welch told TechRadar: “I think, ultimately, we could have made a different trailer – a better trailer that wasn’t about entertaining, which is what we think [The Game Awards] was about. We could have made something that did a better job of highlighting the unique loop of the game.” That is Welch’s assessment of the trailer, not proof that marketing alone caused the reviews.
Reviewing the game, PC Gamer described the central Raid mode as distinctive, while criticizing repetitive looting and systems it considered familiar FPS trends. Those are the reviewer’s judgments; they offer one perspective on the game rather than a comprehensive explanation of Steam users’ scores.
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Was Highguard review-bombed?
PCGamesN argued that review bombing was involved, but that interpretation is not an established finding. Its article also compared positive reviews among players grouped by time played. It reported that 78% of opening-day players with more than five hours played left a positive review; across the first week, the figure for that same longer-playtime group was 85%. These are PCGamesN’s calculations for a defined subset, not the share of all players or all reviewers who liked the game.
The difference between those playtime-filtered figures and the overall launch-era Steam label suggests that the aggregate score and the responses of longer-session players were not identical measures. It does not by itself show that negative reviews were coordinated, inauthentic, or unrelated to players’ genuine experiences.
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How did launch attention compare with long-term success?
Concurrent players, reviews, and long-term viability measure different things. A launch peak captures simultaneous activity at one moment; a review label aggregates user sentiment and can change as more reviews arrive; a sustainable player base requires enough ongoing participation to support a game over time. The launch peak therefore cannot, on its own, explain either the review score or the eventual shutdown.
On March 3, 2026, Wildlight announced that the game would close permanently on March 12. The studio said more than two million players had stepped into the game since launch, but also stated: “Despite the passion and hard work of our team, we have not been able to build a sustainable player base to support the game long term.” The player total and the explanation for closure are Wildlight’s own statements.
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Before release, lead designer Mohammad Alavi had said: “Honestly, we don’t need [player counts] to be super huge in order to be successful.” That ambition is not inconsistent with the later closure: the relevant issue was whether the audience proved sustainable, not simply whether the game attracted a large initial crowd. The cited accounts do not establish a single reason the audience did not last.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Is Highguard still playable?
No. Wildlight said servers would remain online until March 12, 2026, when the game shut down. As of October 8, 2026, Highguard is no longer playable. Its launch-era Steam review labels should be read as historical reception, not as a live score for an active game.
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