Highguard Overview: I Cannot Get Sufficient of Horseback Gunplay and Raiding Bases

I used to be hurtling throughout a fantasy panorama on horseback with my two companions, racing towards the enemy base with the opposing staff sizzling on our heels, a magic sword on my again that might win us the match, and all I may suppose was, Hell sure, this guidelines. I spent all the day gleefully queuing again into extra classes to recapture that second. 

At an occasion in Los Angeles, I received to play Highguard days forward of its launch. Whereas I walked into the preview and not using a clue about what the sport was, 8 hours later, I used to be extra hyped for this shooter than any I might performed since Apex Legends (2019). That is becoming, as lots of the builders at Highguard are veterans of Apex studio Respawn who left to kind a brand new firm, Wildlight Leisure, and make one thing utterly new.

Followers might know Highguard from its reveal at The Sport Awards in an admittedly confusing trailer. In a number of conversations through the preview, Wildlight builders acknowledged that the trailer did not correctly signify their sport, however they’re assured that gamers will change their tune as soon as they get their palms on the sport, which is offered now and free to play on PS5, Xbox Sequence X and PC. It has full cross-play and cross-progression, too. 

I might be shocked if these builders aren’t confirmed proper. Wildlight faces a nigh-impossible process in explaining their sport in a trailer. Broadly, Highguard is a multiplayer shooter that teeters on the sting of chaos however blends components of various video games right into a fastidiously refined dish of palate-pleasing novelty. With components of Apex Legends, Valorant, Rainbow Six: Siege and League of Legends, Highguard is an amalgam with few rivals in its lane.

As an off-the-cuff shooter fan with tons of of hours every in Future 2 and Apex Legends, I discovered Highguard’s squad-based gameplay to be proper up my alley. In the course of the eight matches I performed in my preview, I picked up the sport fairly rapidly and completed the day desirous to queue up for extra. 

Wildlight plans to add dozens of movies explaining every of the sport’s elements, from its Warden hero courses (eight at launch) to weapons to maps to bases. Nevertheless it’s not practically as sophisticated because it sounds on paper — all because of a lot of design iteration because the studio spent the final 4 years making their impressed Frankenstein of a multiplayer sport.

What makes Highguard the world’s first Raid Shooter

For lack of a correct multiplayer descriptor, Wildlight invented its personal: Raid Shooter. This combines first-person taking pictures, the lane skirmishing of MOBAs and the bottom raiding of video games like Rainbow Six: Siege. 

At launch, there’s solely a single mode within the sport, Raid, that pits a pair of three-person groups in opposition to one another. Matches on this mode final between 15 and 25 minutes (or shorter if both staff steamrolls). Every match loops a set of 4 phases, every time-limited to maintain matches flowing. Belief me, these loops will really feel like second nature after a number of matches.

Earlier than every match begins, gamers decide their Warden, every a definite hero with completely different passive, tactical and supreme talents (very like Apex Legends). Squads then vote on their decide from 4 completely different bases (of six at launch, with extra coming). That is what they will defend from enemy raiding, every with a special structure higher suiting some Wardens and play kinds over others. Consider it like selecting between Cinderella’s Citadel, Helm’s Deep or Citadel Dracula, which slot into the sport’s maps. (Gamers solely get to decide on their base, not the bigger map, for every match.)

As soon as the match begins, the primary part begins, giving gamers a minute to fortify their base’s partitions, which might be destroyed with gunfire or instruments. When the bottom’s protect opens, the gear part begins. Squads have 2 minutes to experience out into the broader map to select up extra highly effective variations of the weapons they select at launch, in addition to discover armor and mine minerals to spend at retailers.

Whereas squads are free to battle one another at any time in that second part, the third part shoves groups collectively in a real brawl. After a visual countdown, a particular sword drops down for each squads to battle over. The Shieldbreaker, because the blade known as, have to be dropped at the enemy staff’s base and slammed into the sting of its protect to crack it open. 

As soon as the Shieldbreaker is deployed, the fourth part — the Raid — begins. A siege tower emerges from a portal the place the Shieldbreaker was stabbed into the enemy base and slams into the protect till it splits aside. Then the attacking staff invades the bottom of the defending staff, in search of to burn it down. 

Every base has 100 hit factors. By deploying the Shieldbreaker, attacking gamers deal 30 injury to the enemy base, however to complete it off, they’ve two choices: deploy bombs at two mills on the periphery of the bottom to deal 35 base injury apiece, or go for broke and plant explosives on the Anchor Stone, which takes longer to destroy, however will immediately win the sport if detonated. Defenders can defuse bombs, forcing attackers to plant them once more, however the Raid part lasts only some minutes; if the protection is profitable and nothing is destroyed, the attackers’ base is dealt 30 injury as punishment.

After that, the phases restart: construct your base again up, discover extra gear, battle over the Shieldbreaker and begin a Raid. To amp up the strain, every new loop will increase the rarity of the weapons you will discover, growing their lethality through quicker reloading and firing speeds. Gold-colored legendary weapons are considerably deadlier — one we coveted through the preview, a revolver, enables you to fan the hammer to fireplace blindingly rapidly. 

As a result of there are not any different sport modes at launch, it lives or dies on how a lot that gameplay appeals to gamers. On paper, it is a sampler platter of components from different video games. In apply, every part flows so easily into the following that you simply’d by no means guess it had ever resembled the rest. 

However from the Wildlight builders’ perspective, that is the terminus of a protracted, lengthy journey determining how all these disparate items work collectively.

Years of chipping away to get to the Raid Shooter’s ultimate kind

I joined a bunch interview amongst a number of different journalists on the preview to talk with Jason Torfin, vice chairman of product and publishing at Wildlight, in addition to a author on the sport and Mohammad Alavi, the sport’s lead designer. 

Each are veterans of Respawn and described loads of classes realized from shock launching Apex Legends in 2019 on the identical day it was introduced. As destiny would have it, Highguard is launching practically seven years to the day after that launch. Except for fixing bugs and points that inevitably crop up, they defined how they’ve honed their manufacturing pipeline to reliably get out new content material. In the course of the preview, the staff shared a roadmap for brand new “episode” seasons, coming each two months, every that includes a brand new Warden and map. 

Reside-service video games like Highguard retain gamers by releasing further content material over time. By exhibiting a transparent plan for the months forward, Wildlight hopes to construct belief with the sport’s participant base that they’re going to preserve supporting and including to Highguard, retaining their curiosity amongst stiff competitors from established multiplayer titles like Arc Raiders, Battlefield 6, Helldivers 2 and Overwatch.

Wildlight has different tips to construct participant belief. In-game gadgets are all beauty and will not supply gameplay benefits. Whereas monetization is critical for a free-to-play sport to remain afloat, Highguard’s retailer at launch can have gadgets from the $9 battle pass-like Warfare Chest bundles of cosmetics to $20 unique mounts. Warfare Chests will not expire and might be purchased any time after they’re launched. Gamers who do not need to spend cash can nonetheless earn cosmetics via weekly and seasonal challenges. 

On high of that, each new Warden, weapon, base and map is free for all gamers. As Torfin defined, the staff desires to ensure the sport respects gamers’ money and time, which he says not all dwell service video games competing for consideration do. 

Raid will not essentially be Highguard’s solely mode. The roadmap we have been proven had limited-time modes, just like the just-for-fun ones that popped up in Apex Legends, Torfin stated. These may result in everlasting choices. Over the course of creating Highguard, there have been loads of gameplay concepts that did not work, however could possibly be revisited and make it right into a limited-time mode. Typically these are “sugar junk meals that you simply simply want for every week,” Torfin stated in response to a different journalist’s query. Different instances, they’re partaking sufficient to grow to be actual additions.

Highguard is a multiplayer-only sport, however there’s a background story that is seeded via merchandise descriptions and product bundles that gamers can piece collectively. In response to a different journalist’s query, Torfin described that “the world of Highguard is itself a personality,” a continent that reappeared like Atlantis after 300 years of absence. Two weeks after the sport launches, its second episode of content material will drop, together with the primary inklings of story that may proceed to be added alongside new maps and wardens. Ultimately, Wildlight desires to department out to different media to proceed telling the story in comics, novels, animated shorts and so forth.

Attending to the Raid mode we see at present, Highguard’s first and up to now solely solution to play, was a protracted course of. At one level, the sport pitted 4 three-player groups in opposition to one another, however it wasn’t enjoyable to have your base raided whereas out attacking one other squad’s empty residence turf. And chopping the staff depend in half to simply dueling squads did not clear up the difficulty. To attract gamers towards one another, builders innovated a “lock and key” mechanic to deal with one base at a time to start raiding — and why not make it a rad magic sword?

A variety of refinement got here from the Wildlight builders’ aggressive urge. Initially, the bases did not have a well being bar, and each wall wanted to be pulled down, and Torfin recalled an inside match that lasted 4 hours till the servers broke. However each determination led to creating a sport with “loads of aggressive integrity,” he stated. Which means making the sport truthful and balanced, one thing that is simple to get into however exhausting to grasp, Alavi famous. However for sweatier gamers, there can be a Ranked model of Raid mode coming two weeks after launch, which is able to let gamers take a look at their mettle as they fight climbing aggressive ranks.

However what concerning the reverse viewers — will the sport’s complexity be an excessive amount of for informal gamers? I requested the builders whether or not I, who scraped collectively wins over my journalist counterparts however received demolished by a staff of Wildlight’s finest inside gamers, would benefit from the sport.

“I suck at our sport, so I am proper there with you,” Alavi stated, laughing. And but, “we, the devs, play it continually, and we come from all walks of how good we’re at shooters.”

Ranked mode will siphon off some sweaty gamers, Alavi stated, giving casuals a little bit of respiration room. And there are many extra sophisticated components from video games that influenced Highguard which have been not noted, like League of Legends’ advanced merchandise recipes. Tactically, Highguard additionally consists of a number of comeback mechanics designed to degree the enjoying subject. As a result of every part resets a part of the match, groups have repeated alternatives to let gamers gear again up and get one other go at profitable a Shieldbreaker battle. 

As an example his level, Alavi recalled a match the place his staff was dropping 100 to 10, during which letting the enemy staff even get the Shieldbreaker would lead to a loss. He purchased an merchandise to plant bombs quicker, picked up a legendary gun from a store, received their phases to start out a raid and planted their bomb on the Anchor Stone earlier than the enemy staff knew what occurred. Growth! Alavi’s pleasure was infectious, a had-to-be-there second that I acknowledged from my very own mad horseback sprint to win my sport — one thing that Highguard appears refined to provide.

“Having these comeback mechanics is tremendous vital. Is it gonna occur each time? No,” Alavi stated. “However you already know, even simply getting that sugar excessive that one time retains me coming again for extra.”