As someone who doesn’t watch The Game Awards, my reaction upon finding out about Highguard wasn’t outrage over Geoff Keighley awarding it the apparently illustrious position of being the final reveal of the night. Rather, it was sheer bewilderment over what the heck I was even looking at. A medieval fantasy multiplayer title where you shoot machine guns while riding horses you magically summon out of thin air?! Color me intrigued I guess. I’m typically the type of guy who likes to jump on any notable F2P shooters when they release anyways, but this one had me particularly interested due to how odd it seemed. What I’ve ultimately found after about a week of play is a fairly flawed experience that, despite often feeling like a mashup of every modern live-service trend, nonetheless does have something to offer for the right crowd.

Initial impressions can actually distract from how original and creative the title actually is, as it appears at first to just be trying to check every little online game box to ensure it builds an audience. You’ve got the gunplay of Apex Legends, searching for loot at the start of a match like in a battle royale, and hero shooter elements akin to Overwatch. Luckily, this was reportedly made by longtime industry veterans who previously worked at places such as Respawn Entertainment, so this isn’t merely a sad compilation of a bunch of other people’s homework. The team at Wildlight manages to bring all of these aspects together into a rather distinct package by centering them around their unique idea of forcing players to try and destroy the opposing team’s base in order to win.

It’s an intriguing hook that can lead to thrilling, back-and-forth tug-of-war battles as both sides race to secure the “Shieldbreaker,” which will allow them to breach the opposition’s fortress. At which point they have a limited number of lives to plant bombs on generators to whittle the enemy stronghold’s health down before the round ends. Victories are immensely satisfying. I do wish the majority of my matches hadn’t ended in one party completely steamrolling the other, teamwork is a must so you’ll want to bring a few friends along for the best results, but I have had quite a bit of fun regardless.

That’s not to say there aren’t some pretty serious shortcomings that show the hate directed at Highguard isn’t solely due to how fed up the average internet user is with the whole live-service concept in general. It is shockingly light on content, currently only sporting 3v3 and (just recently added as of this writing) 5v5 options for its single “Raid” mode. The progression is also frustratingly slow thanks to how meager the rewards for completing challenges are. It’s most damning flaw, though? Despite its eye-catchingly bizarre theme, the game is unexpectedly lacking in personality. The world is bland and if there’s any lore I completely missed it. Meanwhile the cast of playable characters are totally generic and forgettable, with exception to Scarlet who stands out solely for being unusually sexy for something trying to go for the largest possible demographic like this and isn’t named Marvel Rivals.

As serious as those issues are however, what I think this really has going against it is simply that the market its makers are attempting to break into has basically already been cornered, and their admirable, decently compelling, and competently entertaining foray here isn’t enough to pull players away from the juggernaut mainstays. That’s ultimately why I’ve decided to walk away. Well, that and a total lack of desire to ever dedicate myself to a “forever game.” That being said, should it manage to survive the current wave of overwhelming negativity and scrutiny it’s fallen under, I would be open to revisiting it somewhere later on down the line to see what’s become of it. I believe it has a lot of genuine potential and would love to see it grow. Consequently, I do recommend others give it a shot since it’s free and therefore they have nothing to lose. As unlikely as it is to blow anyone’s mind, I felt it was enjoyable enough in the time I spent with it to be a perfectly acceptable choice for those looking for a solid means of scratching their competitive multiplayer itch.