One of the developers behind Highguard says the concurrent player count for the new first-person shooter does not need “to be super huge in order to be successful.”
As Highguard launches, previews are rolling out across a variety of different publications, including GameSpot. A flurry of interviews with the game’s developers are also revealing more about the game that’s now in players’ hands. Lead Designer Mohammad Alavi shared the aforementioned sentiment about player count in a group interview attended by PC Gamer, saying that Highguard finding a core, passionate community that can grow is more important.
“Honestly, we don’t need [player counts] to be super huge in order to be successful,” he explained. “We’re a small team. A six-player match [Highguard’s max player count at launch] is not hard to find. What we’re really hoping for is a core group of fans that love us. That will allow us to grow. Being the ire of the internet hate machine sucks, but at the same time, I try to just focus on making the best game I can and getting that game into people’s hands. At the end of the day, that’s all that really matters.”
Highguard is a new first-person shooter where two teams of three “Wardens” compete to take down the opposing team’s base. It features a unique mix of Overwatch’s playable heroes, Battlefield’s large maps and destructible environments, and the horseback riding and magical edge of a shooter like Paladins. Wildlight Entertainment is calling this a “raid shooter,” likely banking on that distinct mix of gameplay elements allowing Highguard to stick out.
Still, whenever a new live-service game launches, people love to immediately check Twitch viewership numbers and Steam concurrent player counts (via SteamDB) to get a general idea of how successful a game is. Although these statistics don’t always paint a full picture, they can quickly shape the online sentiment around the game.
Highguard has faced an uphill battle ever since it got backlash for being the final reveal at The Game Awards 2025 and going almost completely radio silent afterward. That said, Highguard isn’t off to a bad start as it has already surpassed 97,000 concurrent players on SteamDB and 368,000 concurrent viewers on Twitch at the time of this writing.
Those are numbers that high-profile live-service game flops like Concord never even came close to matching. That might also be more than enough for Wildlight Entertainment, especially if a core community forms and maintains itself around Highguard.
