Highguard: 5v5 Improves Things a Bit

Highguard is trying to find its footing, and in a sense, it seems that Wildlights Entertainment is proceeding by trial and error, one patch after another. The Free-to-Play shooter, launched last week less than two months after its announcement – and without any prior Public Beta session – after a truly Hype takeoff, has definitely calmed down, but not to tragic levels.

New life arrived over the weekend with the introduction of the highly requested 5-on-5 mode: one of the main observations made by players was that the maps were too vast for the 3v3 mode offered by the game.

Following the excellent reception of the new mode, Wildlights then decided to make it permanent: the 3v3 mode has not been removed, but 5v5 is prominently displayed on the game menu.

You've been asking, and we're happy to share—5v5 Raid Mode is here to stay!

We appreciate everyone hopping in over the weekend to give the mode a try. We saw a fairly even split between 3v3 and 5v5, which helped inform our decision. pic.twitter.com/S0QfgCE7vK

— Highguard | LIVE NOW! (@PlayHighguard) February 2, 2026

Although this introduction seems to have given new life to the servers, the river of controversy, or at least criticism, accompanying the game has not yet subsided: while it is true that skirmishes are now more frequent, frantic, and chaotic, and the map conveys less of a vast and empty feeling, the concept and gameplay details continue to be prototypical and imperfect. Players complain about characters with uninteresting abilities, the need to collect materials being anticlimactic compared to the game's mood, downtime, and other structural flaws.

Just as our Review defines Highguard as "A polished yet imperfect experiment," the general feeling is that the game is indeed now in a kind of post-launch Beta and will only truly come into its own when the actual updates arrive, in Spring and Summer.

...assuming Highguard is still online when that's supposed to happen...