New free-to-play online shooter launches on Steam as the most-played, least-liked game today, with 97,000-player peak

When a studio founded by the lead designers of Titanfall and Apex Legends launch a new shooter, we can all expect very polarizing reactions. Rightfully so, Wildlight Entertainment’s Highguard is currently fighting its very own battle on Steam. Released yesterday, January 26, 2026, the game immediately shot to a massive peak of 97,249 concurrent players. However, that curiosity turned to frustration very quickly; the game is currently buried under roughly 16,500 reviews, with a staggering 71% of them being negative.

Highguard is what the devs call a "PvP Raid Shooter." It’s a 3v3 format that tries to mash up the hero abilities of Apex with the base-assault mechanics of a MOBA. You play as a "Warden" (an arcane gunslinger) and start every match by picking and fortifying a literal castle. The game plays out in four phases: you spend a minute reinforcing your walls, two minutes riding mounts across a massive open map to loot better gear, and then you brawl over a "Shieldbreaker" sword. If you grab the sword, a massive siege tower portals in, and you spend the final minutes trying to blow up the enemy's power generators before they defuse your bombs.

The big problem is that while the idea sounds great on paper, the execution looks to be empty, going by the reviews. Most players are complaining that the maps are far too large for a 3v3 game, leading to long stretches of "horse-riding simulator" where you don't see another human soul for five minutes at a time. The technical issues are even rougher; even on high-end 50-series cards, the frame rates are tanking, and the reliance on heavy upscaling has left the game looking "blurry" and unpolished. There’s also the secure boot requirement for the anti-cheat, which has turned away a huge chunk of players right at the starting line.

Some of this backlash could be because of the "Game Awards" hangover as well. Because the game took the final "one more thing" slot at TGA 2025, the hype was, well, a lot. Critics are now calling it a "self-fulfilling prophecy of hate," where a confusing trailer and even more confusing gameplay have left players feeling like the devs at Wildlight lost their touch. CEO Dusty Welch has already admitted the original trailer didn't show off the gameplay loop well, but with the Steam rating sitting in the "Mostly Negative" zone, the studio is now in a race to optimize the game before the player count follows the review score into a pit.

You can read more about Highguard on its official Steam store page here.