Highguard’s Steam Launch Is a Literal Crime Scene
I came home from work today to find the most hyped shooter of 2026 currently sitting at a 17 percent positive rating on Steam while nearly a hundred thousand people are still playing it.
There is a specific kind of smell in the air when a big budget shooter faceplants into the pavement. It is a mix of server smoke and the collective rage of gamers who feel personally betrayed by a trailer. Highguard was supposed to be the "Titanfall killer" or the "Apex evolution," but right now it looks more like a cautionary tale about what happens when you let Geoff Keighley hype your game into the stratosphere before it can actually run on a 50-series card. The "Overwhelmingly Negative" tag is staring back at us like a scarlet letter, and honestly, the reasons behind it are as messy as the game's current optimization.
The 17 Percent Solution
Looking at that red text on the Steam store page is like watching a car crash in slow motion. It is brutal, and for a studio made of Respawn veterans, it has to be a fucking gut punch.
The Performance Tax
Even if you sold a kidney for an RTX 5080, apparently you still cannot get a clear image in this game. I have seen reports from players with top-tier rigs getting 100 frames per second on a good day, but the forced anti-aliasing and motion blur make the whole thing look like it was smeared with Vaseline. It is a technical disaster for a competitive shooter where every millisecond counts. When a 2026 game runs worse than a 2012 tech demo, people are going to grab their pitchforks.
The 3v3 Identity Crisis
The map the size of a small European country, yet you are only running around with two other people on your team. It leads to a lot of running and not enough shooting. By the time you find someone to kill, you have already mined enough ore to build a summer home. The "raid" mechanics were pitched as this grand evolution, but right now it feels like a marathon with the occasional shootout.
Is it Actually That Bad?
I have spent a few hours in the trenches today and while it is definitely unpolished, the vitriol feels a bit performative.
The Review Bombing Meta
It has become a sport to find the next "Concord" and bury it before it can breathe. Some of these reviews have 0.2 hours on record. That is barely enough time to adjust the brightness settings, let alone understand the nuance of a PvP raid shooter. People are ripping into it for the sake of ripping into it because hating things is the internet’s favorite pastime. It is a "nothingburger" for some, but for others, it is a personal insult to their hardware.
The Player Count Reality
Despite the 17 percent rating, 80,000 people are currently in the game as I write this. If it were truly unplayable slop, that number would be zero. There is a core loop here that works, the gunplay feels decent when it isn't stuttering, even if it is buried under layers of blurry textures and weird design choices. It is a confusing game, sure, but the "Overwhelmingly Negative" tag feels like a reaction to the hype more than the actual content.
Got a hot take on this? I know you do. Head over to r/neonlightsmedia to discuss it.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
