News

Highguard Gets New 5v5 Mode and New Base

Wildlight Entertainment has announced the release of the 5v5 Raid Mode update for Highguard. The mode is currently available as a limited-time playlist. The update also introduces a new base called Soul Well, along with several optimization improvements, including a motion blur toggle on PC and consoles and an anisotropic materials toggle on consoles. Highguard launched as a free-to-play title on January 26 and is available now on Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC. Notably, the game’s Steam rating has since improved from “Mostly Negative” to “Mixed.”

The full details:

5v5 Raid Mode – Experimental Playlist

We heard the feedback!

For the weekend, we are experimenting with a 5v5 Raid Mode.

This is a separate playlist and not meant to replace 3’s.

3v3 Raids are still there for people who enjoy it!

The lobby has been updated to allow for parties of 5 while the mode is live. Grab 4 friends and jump into some hectic raids!

A few small tweaks for this mode:

Raids are now 10 lives instead of 6
Respawns are slightly longer during raids to allow generators to be planted/defused

Dev note: As most of you know, we are working on optimizations across the game. Many are in this patch and 3v3 should see good improvements! But… adding 4 more players to the game is not going to improve performance, right? Please keep that in mind as you try 5v5!

Dev note 2: Firing Range does not support 5v5 at this time, so the Play button will be grayed out if your party is over 3.

New Base – Soul Well

Soul Well is a dark relic from a lost age. The Iron Vigil has now prepared this base construct for use in the field where the dead still speak.

Watch the Soul Well base vignette

This new base will be added to the rotation in all modes.

Optimizations
This patch contains several optimizations that touch on animation performance, projectiles, draw submission times, and other gameplay systems. These optimizations benefit console and PC, but every PC is different, so the exact speedup to overall framerate is dependent on GPU, CPU, and other factors.

Quality of Life
Enabled these visual settings on PC and consoles

Motion blur toggle for PC and consoles

Anisotropic materials toggle for consoles (PC has this already)

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Abdul Saad

Abdul Saad is a seasoned entertainment journalist and critic and has been writing for five years on multiple gaming sites. When he isn't writing or playing the latest JRPG, he can be found coding games of his own or tinkering with something electrical.