Highguard Is Out Today – and We’ve Played a Lot of It

Tons of video games supply intense, aggressive, squad-based motion, however I can’t assume of any moreover Highguard the place I can sling spells and bullets from the again of a majestic, galloping bear as I cost in to destroy an enemy fortress.

Highguard turned a lot of heads with its flashy reveal on the finish of the Recreation Awards final month, however many have been left eager to know extra about this mysterious debut from Wildlight Leisure, a new studio of Apex Legends, Titanfall, and Name of Responsibility veterans. The builders are first to confess that the intervening month has been quiet, however are assured that the sport they’ve toiled over in secret for 4 years will communicate for itself on launch at the moment.

I spent a entire day taking part in the sport and interviewing its lead builders and studio founders final week, and I’m right here to let you know precisely what we’re all about to play with Highguard.

Able to Raid

As a “PvP raid shooter,” Highguard is constructed round a new and fascinating gameplay loop during which two groups of three gamers fortify bases, experience out on mounts to collect sources and achieve energy, and provoke a sequence of raids to attempt and destroy the opposing crew’s base first. It’s a little bit MOBA, a little bit survival shooter, and a little bit Seize the Flag, amongst different influences.

Recreation Director and studio Co-Founder Chad Grenier tells me that the mode’s genesis got here from crew members having fun with the fun of raiding an enemy base in multiplayer survival basic Rust, and eager to distill that into a refined, aggressive, repeatable expertise. “Each match is about escalation: fortifying, venturing out, clashing, then mounting coordinated raids and defenses till just one base is left standing.”

Every spherical begins with a minute locked in your base to selectively fortify partitions, earlier than being minimize free to search out higher gear and harvest crystals that may be turned in at retailers all around the map to additionally change and improve your package. The maps are extensive open, and I very not often bumped into members of the opposite crew till after a number of minutes into a match, when a storm would type over one of a number of predetermined areas, the place the Shieldbreaker quickly materialized. This magical sword is your key to victory—groups combat to seize it first and run it to the enemy base (“like reverse Seize the Flag,” in line with Grenier) and insert it into one of a number of slots round their magical perimeter defend, initiating a raid.

A siege tower instantly materializes from a portal, which cracks a section of the bottom’s defend for the invaders to enter, additionally serving as their ahead base for respawns through the raid. The invading crew’s goal is then to breach the bottom (which is full of breakable partitions), plant bombs on one of three key spots, and defend them till they go off. Two of the factors will do substantial harm to the bottom’s life complete, whereas efficiently destroying the principle, centrally fortified level will take it out totally. The match ends when just one base stays standing.

If each bases are nonetheless there when the raid ends, the match resets and one other Shieldbreaker begins to type, however with new and improved gear discovered scattered across the map and in retailers. Every of these phases is on a tight timer, on which respawns for each groups might be capped till the following section begins, which retains issues shifting. My matches ran anyplace from 10 to half-hour, with some of the longer ones being fairly dramatically swingy.

The tempo variation between the phases and escalating energy over the course of the match gave it a distinct and nice rhythmic cycle of rising anticipation in preparation main into tense raids with larger and larger stakes. Lead Designer Mohammad Alavi says that this was intentionally tuned to make it enjoyably sustainable, the place the identical quantity of hours of nonstop PvP deathmatch could be extra exhausting for many gamers.

Want for Steed

Most of Wildlight’s inventive management and design crew labored on Apex Legends, and it reveals in how buttery clean the motion feels.

There are 10 weapons out there at launch, all of which can really feel acquainted to a seasoned FPS participant. With slots for 2 at a time, I tended to make use of the Ranger sniper rifle and Paladin automated shotgun to cowl long- and close-range engagements, as matches would inevitably embrace each. You even have one of three raid instruments (a rocket launcher, an explosive sledgehammer, or a zipline gun), which offer limited-use tactical utility or base destruction. All the pieces appears and sounds pretty much as good as you’d anticipate from so many style veterans, and the distinction in method between each bit of the arsenal is instantly noticeable.

Respawn video games are additionally well-known for his or her motion tech, and Highguard carries that legacy confidently. Along with the anticipated working, leaping, sliding, and mantling, the large new mobility addition is mounts, which you’ll be able to summon and dismiss at will in most components of the map. There have been horses, bears, panthers, and gryphons out there to select from, although the variations are beauty. I rode a massive, brown bear clad in bone armor, and I cherished my chonky, lovely son.

Mounts are a necessity for protecting the maps’ large distances effectively, and additionally lend themselves to enjoyable gameplay moments that I’ve by no means skilled in a shooter earlier than, like having the ability to mount up and dramatically gallop off to move the enemy off on the move as I see the Shieldbreaker icon on the minimap shifting up in the direction of our base.

Selections, Selections

Including to the sense of flexibility and selection, gamers additionally select to play as one of eight Wardens out there at launch, with extra coming later. They’re distinctive characters, restricted to at least one per crew, every with a passive potential, a tactical potential on cooldown, and an final that slowly expenses up. The 2 I ended up spending probably the most time with each had highly effective space denial talents.

Atticus is a proud, armored warrior that throws lightning spears as his tactical potential, which spark harm to close by enemies like a Tesla coil till destroyed. When protecting an imminently forming Shieldbreaker or a ticking-down bomb, I appreciated throwing these in corners or above doorways at strategic choke factors, peppering the enemy crew with further harm as they tried to come back in.

Una, then again, is a masked shaman who summons lovable little nature spirit buddies (not in contrast to like Zelda’s Koroks), which throw beautiful grenades to pester passing enemies in addition to often popping as much as give her loot. Her final summons a large tree spirit that may actually lock down an necessary spot in a essential second. Each characters jogged my memory of how a lot I get pleasure from taking part in as Symmetra and Torbjörn in Overwatch, discovering the trickiest and most obnoxious spots doable to stay their turrets. Kai was maybe the character I noticed probably the most in my matches, a monk fused with a frost demon that summons a huge wall of ice as his tactical potential, which proved clutch time and once more for controlling house.

The bases themselves are additionally a kind of character selection, as gamers on every crew will vote for one the six complete within the sport at launch, which can then slot into any of the maps. The bases have distinct benefits and vulnerabilities that work together with the Wardens’ talents in all types of fascinating methods. As an example, Hellmouth is a fortress suspended over a lava chasm with slender bridges which are good for shutting down with Kai’s wall.

The Wardens, bases, weapons, and objects within the sport at launch already present a enjoyable and wide selection of prospects to discover in how they will remix to synergize or counter each other, giving a lot of dimensions round which the gameplay meta can evolve. Furthermore, Wildlight already has a strong plan in place for infusing the sport with a beneficiant, regular drip of new content material in all of these areas and extra.

Eyes on the Horizon

Highguard’s stay service additions will come within the type of two-month chapters, divided into two halves. That signifies that each single month they intend to launch some mixture of new Wardens, bases, maps, weapons, raid instruments, and extra. The primary replace, coming in simply a few weeks, will introduce ranked play, and Grenier tells me they’ve tons of alternate gameplay modes within the works that may cycle in and out – resembling Mario Kart-inspired mounted racing. All gameplay content material might be added free of charge, with monetized parts strictly beauty.

That’s an bold plan, however one for which this crew is extraordinarily effectively ready. Wildlight CEO and Co-Founder Dusty Welch tells me that, whereas the Respawn crew have been very pleased with the preliminary launch of Apex Legends (which arrived as a complete shock), they hadn’t began to plot out any post-release content material till after it had come out, leaving months of lag time earlier than they may launch something new. Wildlight and Highguard have been conceived with this hard-earned expertise in thoughts to be oriented round live-service manufacturing from the very starting.

“Beginning this firm, Chad [Grenier] and I knew we have now to consider constructing it in a different way,” Welch instructed me, “and the folks we rent, the mindset that we have now, the pipelines that we arrange, the instruments, the applied sciences, the exterior partnerships and relationships, in order that we’re considering from day one the right way to efficiently function a stay service and have an ongoing, significant dialog with our participant base, and continually be delighting and shocking them with content material. We didn’t do this effectively with Apex at launch, and we’re extraordinarily well-prepared as we sit right here at the moment.”

That entire 12 months of new content material for Highguard is already deep into improvement. Each Welch and Alavi gave the identical sly look and non-answer when requested about their favourite Wardens to play, since they’re not within the sport but at launch (Welch confirmed it’s the identical one). The requirements and expectations for live-service video games are larger than ever, however this crew includes individuals who have been doing it for a very very long time already, and they’ve come about as appropriate as any studio I’ve but seen chase this mannequin.

Highguard shocked and impressed me. I’m not nice at quick, aggressive shooters as a baseline, however its vibrant aesthetics and considerate design have completely piqued my curiosity. The marketplace for live-service shooters is crowded, however Highguard has the benefit of providing an fascinating new gameplay mode that doesn’t map onto any of the prevailing genres like battle royale or extraction. This can be Wildlight’s first sport, however that belies a deeply assured and passionate crew on the high of their type, excited to make the perfect sport they will with out the constraints of a main writer.

You don’t must take my phrase for it: attempt Highguard at the moment free of charge, out there on Xbox Sequence X|S.