Highguard Is Currently Experiencing Massive Queues, Repeatedly Booting Players From The Game

Well, I didn't see this coming: Highguard is currently unplayable via Steam because the game has a massive queue, and players are reporting (myself included) that once you get through the queue, the game boots you back out once you've completed the tutorial. Highguard currently has just over 50,000 concurrent players on Steam and over 300,000 viewers on Twitch.

Despite the lack of any marketing in the lead up to launch day, Highguard has gone live with a massive marketing push - our own writer Allyson Cochran got a chance to play the game ahead of launch and said, "It actually rules," so maybe this big queue isn't such a surprise after all.

Queues Across The Board

Highguard map with players in the foreground.-1

Highguard is a free-to-play hero shooter that was first revealed back at The Game Awards. It featured in the illustrious final slot of the show, and it was later confirmed that this was arranged by Geoff Keighley himself because he had enjoyed the game so much. Like everyone else, I was confused but also slightly optimistic about its launch. Developed by ex Titanfall and Apex Legends devs, this puts Wildlight Entertainment on a pedestal for me.

At the time of writing, I'm still sat in the Highguard queue. The file size is only 18gb on PC, which means I was able to download it quickly...along with everyone else in the world. Despite the hype growing over the past few days, with a few tweets from the official The Game Awards Twitter account before today, I'm not sure anyone really knew what was going to happen with the launch of Highguard.

So far, the game seems to be proving even more popular than developer Wildlight Entertainment might have expected. They've gone all-out with a marketing push on Twitch, sponsoring top streamers like Shroud to play the game. However, Shroud is also sat in the queue in front of an audience of 30,000 viewers.

Even Shroud says that he "didn't expect there to be this much hype", and didn't load up his game ahead of time to jump the queues. Some players are reporting that they queued to join the tutorial, and once the tutorial was completed, the game put them into another queue. If you'd hoped to play Highguard today, it might be a good idea to come back later when things have calmed down a little.

It's going to be interesting over the next few days whether Highguard can hold on to this massive momentum, as both the new Arc Raiders patch and Battlefield 6's new season are coming in the next few weeks.