The Game Awards is usually where we go to see celebrities awkwardly read teleprompters and Geoff Keighley reveal the future of our social lives. This year it felt a little different, more polished, more mainstream and more announcements. One big one was Wildlight Entertainment and their debut title, Highguard.
If the name Wildlight doesn’t ring a bell yet, the pedigree certainly will. This is the new home for a massive squad of former Respawn Entertainment heavyweights, some of the minds behind Apex Legends and Titanfall. They’ve spent the last four years working in the shadows, and they’ve emerged with something that looks impressive.
What on Earth is a ‘PvP Raid Shooter’?
Wildlight is pitching Highguard as a PvP Raid Shooter. It’s a bit of a mouthful, but the gameplay loop is fascinatingly ambitious.
Players step into the boots of Wardens, arcane gunslingers battling across a mythical continent. The match structure sounds like a high-stakes heist:
- The Scramble: Warden crews clash in the open to secure the Shieldbreaker.
- The Siege: Once you have the goods, you use them to breach the enemy’s fortified base.
- The Payoff: It’s all-out war as you attempt to destroy the enemy’s core while they scramble to defend it.
It’s effectively what happens if you take the hero-based chaos of Apex, add the base-siege tension of a tower defence game, and then give everyone a horse. Yes, horseback riding is a central feature here, allowing for high-speed flanking and traversal across massive, destructible maps.
Hero Shooter Fatigue? Not if They Can Help It
The internet has been a little cynical about new shooters lately (we’ve all seen the recent casualties in the genre), but Highguard is swinging for the fences with a unique “fantasy meets future” aesthetic. Think magical ultimate abilities paired with high-tech weaponry, all set against a backdrop of ancient castles and crumbling ruins.
The trailer showcased a level of environmental destruction as well. Seeing a castle wall crumble as a “Shieldbreaker” siege engine rolls through is a far cry from the static hallways of your average arena shooter.
When Can You Play It?
We won’t be waiting three years for a “coming soon” teaser. Highguard is deep in development and almost ready to go. The game is scheduled to launch as a free-to-play title on January 26, 2026.
It will feature full cross-play and cross-progression at launch, landing on Steam, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 simultaneously.
Whether Highguard can capture the lightning-in-a-bottle success of Apex Legends remains to be seen, but with 60-plus veterans of the genre at the helm, you’d have to think that these devs know what they are doing.
