The developers of Apex Legends and Titanfall aim to create a new hit with Highguard. MeinMMO author Cedric Holmeier has played the new shooter and reveals how the first impression turns out.
What kind of shooter is this? Highguard describes itself as a PvP raid shooter where players take on the role of a gunslinger, known as a Guardian. Players compete against rival factions to capture the so-called Shieldbreaker and use it to demolish and destroy the enemy base.
In the game, this means that initially, similar to Rainbow Six Siege, the player may fortify their own base and its walls. After 60 seconds, they go out onto the battlefield, which is quite large. Here, there are red crates for weapons and blue crates for equipment. Crystals and a shop for gear are also available.
Once the team is equipped and perhaps even the first fight has already taken place behind the team, everything revolves around the so-called Shieldbreaker. Whoever captures it in a sort of “Capture the Flag” mode and brings it to the enemy base starts a raid.
The goal of the raid is to destroy the enemy bomb sites (there are 3) and inflict damage. If the base drops to 0 HP, the player’s team wins the game. However, the raid is over as soon as the player’s team has used a certain number of respawns. Then it goes back to phase 2, where both teams collect gear, weapons, and currency and perform upgrades.
MeinMMO author Cedric Holmeier has played the shooter and shares his first impressions after the first round with you.
Here you can watch the trailer for Highguard:
Highguard is every shooter, but better
While not much was known about Highguard previously, I took the plunge into the new shooter right at launch. I had hardly any idea of what to expect; to me, the description sounded like Overwatch in a different way, and that turned out to be true. Even the German tutorial is not exactly simple. Looting, abilities, objectives, and on top of that collecting and trading currencies.
Just before the start of my first round, I quickly clicked through the 8 different heroes and then chose the scout, Condor. Her abilities reveal nearby enemies and are not too difficult, perfect for me as a casual gamer.
In the round, I was initially surprised by how little time there is for fortifying your own base. After the loading screen, you have only 60 seconds to implement upgrades together with the team. That may be enough time for pros from Rainbow Six Siege, but for me in the first round, it was quite stressful.
With a slight delay, we then started the looting phase, which I began with even less of my teammates. They all immediately ran off in different directions, as you would expect from random players on the internet. The first fights were more about “rushing to my allies” than coordinated combat.
The enemy team consisted entirely of more experienced players than I, as they jumped and crouched like in Call of Duty, which they all did excellently. My team, on the other hand, shone with what was probably the first rage-quit in Highguard just 23 minutes after launch.
However, it must be said in favor of the game that everyone could have left the game without penalties after our team member abandoned us. Nevertheless, I and the remaining player of my team did not give up and even managed a comeback in the end. The opponents had nearly defeated us, but through clever distraction maneuvers, we stole the Shieldbreaker from the opposing team and managed to raid their base successfully.
Conclusion
Highguard currently feels like a mix of Apex Legends, Rainbow Six Siege, and Overwatch 2. The latter has the least influence, and the gunplay as well as the time-to-kill is more akin to Apex Legends. What these three games have to offer and what Highguard draws from, it has, in my opinion, implemented even better than the originals. Therefore, I also say: I really don’t need these three shooters anymore.
Thus, base defense is tactical but more of an accessory than a round-defining choice with serious consequences. The fast gunplay and movement, including bunny hops, riding, ropes, and a lot of action, clearly come from Apex Legends and feel even more carefree here, almost like the release time of Apex Legends.
At the same time, it should be emphasized that the game can also end quickly if your team has no idea what it is doing. Thus, the latest shooter of 2026 is unplayable if a teammate throws the round or goes to mine crystals alone.
What fascinated me, however, was the eSports character of the game. It feels like the developers have finally managed to create a shooter with tactical depth that outsiders can enjoy watching even without understanding the game mechanics while high-level players can do hundreds of things at once in no time.
What remains open is the question of where to go from here. Because through the mix of tactics and fast gunplay, the developers have indeed created a completely new gameplay principle that can quickly become a torment for casual players. Because intuitively and straightforwardly, the gameplay mode is not yet adequate for players.
Whether Highguard will achieve a success as great as Apex Legends remains questionable. The fact that hardly any information about the shooter was released before the launch seems like a genius tactic, similar to the shadow drop of Apex Legends, as the game appears to be really good at first glance. Even before the launch, MeinMMO expert Dariusz Müller examined the new shooter: On Monday, a free shooter from the developers behind Titanfall 2 – Here’s what we know
