Active Reload: A Video Game Podcast · Sheridan Media

Highguard Initial Reactions! Will it be Another Concord?

·58 min·3 clips

The hosts say Highguard mixes Apex, Paladins, Unreal Tournament, and Halo in one shooter.

1. Active Reload episode 122 centers on Highguard's launch reaction and the surrounding game news. 2. The hosts are Grant and Treff, and their back-and-forth matters because one played Highguard on PC and PS5 while the other tracked the launch discourse. 3. The episode asks whether Highguard is another Concord or a niche multiplayer game with a future. 4. Highguard launched as a free-to-play multiplayer shooter with 3v3 matches, a big map, and three round phases. 5. The hosts say Steam showed an all-time peak of 97,249 players and then dropped to 18,826 later the same day. 6. They note that Steam reviews sat at 33.96% positive and were already being written after 30 minutes or about two hours of play. 7. The discussion links the game's attention to its Game Awards trailer, which the hosts say had bad publicity from the start. 8. They say Insider Gaming reported a planned shadow drop, and Jeff Keighley allegedly moved the reveal to the end of the show. 9. Highguard's PC version is described as having frame hitching, hit-detection problems, and desync, while the PS5 version ran better. 10. The hosts say the game uses looting, vendor upgrades, mounts, and a sword-key objective to move between the prep phase and the base assault. 11. One of the strongest arguments is that Highguard feels like several other shooters combined, including Apex, Paladins, Unreal Tournament, Halo, and Shadowrun. 12. The hosts say the UI looks a lot like Apex and the map design resembles Halo Reach big team battle. 13. They also compare the mode flow to Unreal Tournament and the mount movement to Paladins or a hoverboard-style traversal system. 14. The gunplay is called very mid, and one host says the game only became fun when the rounds were competitive and back-and-forth. 15. The other host says a legitimate review probably needs more than four hours of playtime, but still argues the game has to earn hard drive space. 16. Both hosts say the art direction is the weakest part because the characters, guns, and mounts look basic and generic. 17. The conversation is casual, argumentative, and full of interruptions, with cereal jokes and side references running through the whole show. 18. The format mixes live reaction, gameplay discussion, and a quick pass over trailers for Cairn, I Hate This Place, and Code Vein 2. 19. People who follow multiplayer shooters, launch-day discourse, and Game Awards controversies would get the most from this episode. 20. People wanting a polished review or deep single-game analysis may skip it.

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