“Easy to learn, hard to master”: How Highguard plans to shake up the live-service scene

Despite its lack of marketing, aside from being the final trailer at The Game Awards, Highguard created a lot of buzz online ahead of today’s launch.

A new addition to the hero-shooter genre, Highguard has been developed by Wildlight Entertainment, an independent studio comprised of former Apex Legends and Titanfall developers. 

With a past history in developing one of the most popular battle royales in esports — which was also famously shadow dropped —it’s hard to predict how the studio’s ‘raid-shooter’ will perform, both from a casual and competitive standpoint. 

Esports Insider was flown out by Wildlight Entertainment to play Highguard ahead of its launch. During the event, ESI spoke with Mohammad Alavi, Lead Designer for Highguard, and Jason Torfin, its VP of Product and Publishing, and Game Writer, to discuss Highguard, their ambitions for the title, and its esports potential. 

Highguard is a 3v3 first-person raid shooter, where teams set up defences in unique bases, ride out to gather loot, and secure the ‘Shieldbreaker’ needed to raid the opposing team. It features a cast of playable heroes called Wardens with unique abilities, a large loot pool to shape loadouts, and more.

Highguard is a free-to-play title that is available on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.

Highguard releases with a live service roadmap, divided into several episodes spanning as long as two months each. 

Seven episodes are planned in total, each of which will feature two parts, starting with its launch today (January 26th), all the way to December this year. 

The game launches with five maps, eight wardens or playable characters, six unique bases and 10 weapons, alongside additional features such as mounts, lootable items and more. Future content will also include new characters, modes to play, including Ranked two weeks after launch, and weapons to use, shifting the in-game meta over time. 

A live-service hero-shooter is not a novel concept in itself. The market is oversaturated with popular titles such as Overwatch 2 and Marvel Rivals, games that are also defined by shifting metas. As a result, Highguard will face tough competition in its efforts to attract new players. 

One of the most crucial aspects that will shape the game’s success in the long run is how it will tackle balance, a factor that will impact both casual players and a potential professional scene should one emerge. According to Highguard’s developers, this is something that has already been considered. 

“We’ve been preparing for live service for a really long time. The team has worked together on Apex Legends and many other live service games,” stated Torfin.

“We’re constantly turning knobs and balancing every aspect of the game, and I think getting it into a large population is also going to tell us a lot about how to balance it. And we listen to that feedback, and we look at the data, and we make it better.”

Alavi added: “We also have a lot of telemetry. We’re constantly getting data about how things are going. So we can see if something is shifting too far into the meta, and we need to bring it back. We have all those tools in place to do that very quickly.”

During the press conference, Esports Insider was curious to know where the developers’ priorities lay and whether balance took priority over content. As a result, the question was posed about ‘power creep’, a problem some of the most popular esports titles face, where new additions overpower legacy content. 

Torfin commented: “When we start from a foundation where everything is measured out in a good cadence, it gives us time to balance things from episode to episode. And that helps a lot in terms of addressing that.

“Then there are also different things as you get further into any live service with ranked or other things like that. You start using other things, like maybe you ban certain characters or certain bases. And you start to try to find ways to continually keep the playing field even for everybody.”

Considering Wildlight Entertainment’s Apex Legends history during the developers’ time at Respawn Entertainment, fans are eager to know whether Highguard will follow in its predecessor’s footsteps to become a competitive title. 

When trying the game for the first time, some things, in particular, stood out. From the statistics screen following a match, to the in-game content, such as purchasable items in the shop. However, features commonly associated with the esports scene, such as a replay or observer system, were noticeably absent. Detecting this omission, the developers were asked whether the game would include features in future updates that would aid players, casters and organisers in esports. 

Torfin shared: “The way we think about esports is we want to see if there is demand there first for the game. 

“So we want to be very efficient with our resources and stay agile and nimble. We do think the game is super watchable, and so I think once we see how players take it on, we’re prepared to rapidly support those types of things if an ecosystem kind of rises up.”

The game certainly has esports potential, though its main challenge will be to reach a wide audience in a crowded market. A lot of hardcore players already have their ‘forever game’, and scenes they follow. Unless an infrastructure is created as well, most established esports athletes will likely stick to their singular title. 

However, it is a game with a unique gameplay loop, helping to differentiate Highguard from its esports competition in terms of gameplay and viewer experience. New esports scenes and inaugural majors have emerged in the past year surrounding games like Marvel Rivals and The Finals. Highguard could follow the same trend. 

Despite this, it remains to be seen whether the developers are willing to take that step. Esports Insider asked what kind of game Wildlight Entertainment was trying to create and whether the studio would support an esports scene should the opportunity arise.

Alavi said: “Competitive integrity is a word we throw around a lot because we believe in it. But above all that, and competitive integrity feeds into it too, we want the game to be fun. Part of that ‘easy to learn, hard to master’, that’s kind of our mentality. We want everybody to get into it and have fun, but we also want enough depth there that the skill expression can be there.”

Torfin added: ‘We’re small and independent, and we’re also self-publishing, so we do have limited resources… We definitely want to go there if there’s appetite for it, for sure. And I think we built the right team, the right processes, and the right plan to execute on it.”

When Highguard was first announced at The Game Awards 2025 showcase, fan expectations were high as it leaned on its Apex Legends history as one of its main selling points.

After playing the game, many similarities can be drawn between the two titles. From the kits of the wardens — a resemblance to Apex Legends’ characters and their mechanics — to the main gameplay loop of gathering loot and the gunplay in Highguard. Ultimately, it feels familiar to its battle royale predecessor.

While the game has leaned on the developers’ history as a selling point, the greatest challenge facing the game is whether it can step out from Apex Legends’ shadow and stand out as its own experience. 

During discussions, the question was raised about what lessons were taken from the years of supporting Apex Legends that were implemented during Highguard’s development. Especially since Wildlight Entertainment is a self-published, independent studio that does not rely on publisher backing.

Alavi said: “I think the biggest one is how prepared we are, right? Apex Legends was our first live service, like our true live service, and there were also Titanfall and Call of Duty before that. But like, Apex Legends was our true game as a service.  And we really weren’t ready, and we didn’t know we weren’t ready.

“But coming into this, we went through that fire. So, just from the roadmap, we went into it having that plan. But not just that, but also having the tools in place; having the telemetry in place, and having everything ready to be agile, because that’s the most important part. You want to be able to get that community feedback and then immediately act on it.”

After playing Highguard, there is certainly more to the raid-shooter than what was presented in the initial reveal trailer back in December.

However, as with most live-service titles, the game will need to connect with users on launch and go above and beyond afterwards to shake up a market dominated by popular titles such as Fortnite, Counter-Strike 2, Call of Duty and more. 

The gameplay is unique and differentiates itself from other tactical shooters, battle-royales and hero-shooters. On top of its unique premise, it is also simple to pick up and understand after a few matches. Even so, the game demands many skills, from resource management, optimising loadouts and team comps, alongside coordinating with your team to attack or defend an objective. Certainly hitting that ‘easy to learn, hard to master’ objective. 

However, its 3v3 format can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, it can be a continuous back-and-forth showdown filled with excitement. On the other hand, it can easily become one-sided, which can be further impacted by a player leaving the lobby. 

As an esport, there is potential. Matches are not defined by which team scores the most eliminations, but simply which base is destroyed first. As such, there are opportunities for storylines to develop during matches, whether that be comeback victories from the jaws of defeat or matches that come down to the wire. 

Ultimately, Highguard’s success hinges on how popular the game becomes after release, and how that changes in the months and years that follow. 

Editor’s Note: Esports Insider was invited to the event by Wildlight Entertainment. This included travel and accommodation. However, Esports Insider has full editorial control of the content.