Highguard is out on PS5, Xbox, and PC and it’s been a weird day for the unique new hero shooter. There were false claims it had worked with disgraced streamer DrDisrespect and a myriad of technical issues plaguing its first hours on Steam. Now, as the dust settles, Highguard has racked up over 9,000 reviews on Valve’s storefront, but the vast majority are negative.
On January 26, after a period of radio silence following its reveal at the 2025 Game Awards, Highguard launched for free, offering players a 3v3 PVP “raid shooter” experience complete with destructible environments and cool mounts to ride into battle on. However, shortly after the game’s launch, players began reporting problems. One of the first was that many, myself included, couldn’t even play Highguard due to the overwhelmed servers. Far from the worst issue to have on launch day.
Once players got in, many reported performance issues on PC, with rigs equipped with high-end hardware still struggling to play Highguard at a steady framerate. And after getting through all that, some players have found matches in Highguard boring and slow, complaining that the 3v3 format and large map don’t mix well. Sprinkle in some bad-faith users attacking the game for looking “woke,” whatever the hell that means, and you end up with a horrible Steam review rating.
What is Highguard’s Steam review rating?
As of 5:10 p.m. EST, Highguard has 9,442 user reviews on Steam across all languages. Of those nearly 10,000 reviews, SteamDB data shows 7,230 of them are negative. This adds up to a “Mostly Negative” status on Steam with fewer than 2,000 positive reviews. Ouch. Over on the PlayStation Store, things are better, with Highguard sitting at nearly 2,000 reviews and a 3.34 out of 5-star rating.
It might be easy to assume this is some nefarious review bombing, and I do think some of this can be blamed on bad actors and annoying chuds. But scrolling through the reviews does show a lot of players just don’t seem to like the slow pace of the game and the 3v3 format.
“The maps in this game are way too big for 3v3; the size would fit better for 5v5 or 6v6,” posted one Steam reviewer. “In the looting stage, the map is too big and empty considering it’s only 3v3, and the only things in it are red and blue chests (and the crystals i guess),” shared another user. “The 3v3 format on such a huge map just doesn’t click for me, and the overall experience becomes chaotic without bringing anything new to the table,” said someone else.
Of course, it should be noted that not even 12 hours have passed since Highguard’s launch. So all of these reviews are based on a dozen or so matches or less. The real question will be what happens in the next few days, weeks, and months–assuming Highguard sticks around that long–and if the devs can turn the ship around.
