Highguard's rocky release proves that Steam reviews aren't fit for purpose

Highguard is better than you'd expect, given the Steam ratings. It launched to a barrage of bad reviews, averaging 'extremely negative' within minutes on Valve's storefront, despite it being impossible for anyone to have played enough to come to a genuine conclusion in the seconds since it launched. This average rose only to 'mostly negative' the next day and has now settled at 'mixed' as players have had a chance to actually appraise the game. This farce of a Steam launch is no fault of developer Wildlight Entertainment, however. The blame lies with bad actors and Steam's outdated review system.

We found that, among players who'd actually played more than five hours of Highguard on its opening day, a far more respectable 78% of them had left a positive review, which has risen to 85% (very positive) over its first week. This tells me two things. Firstly, Highguard is good. It's not blowing audiences away, but it's a solid start for a live-service game. Secondly, Steam reviews are not fit for purpose.

We've all seen review bombing before. Several Paradox Interactive games suffered review bombs last year after the famously alt-historical Hearts of Iron 4 was lambasted for its new DLC's revisionism. Games get review bombed for being too 'woke' - ie having any representation of non-white or LGBTQ+ characters. And now Highguard has been review bombed for the crime of being… shown at The Game Awards? It's one ridiculous situation after another.

Many people were disappointed with Geoff Keighley's 'one more thing' at the 2025 Game Awards. It's an advertising slot he's previously reserved for the best and brightest trailers from behemoth studios. Naughty Dog's sci-fi game Heretic Prophet. Monster Hunter Wilds. A new Mass Effect game. Huge titles guaranteed to get people talking.

This year, he convinced a brand-new indie studio to cobble together a bad trailer to fill the coveted final slot. Nobody was more disappointed than I when the trailer that said "From the makers of Titanfall 2" showed a game that demonstrably isn't Titanfall 3, but did that make me want to tank its launch? No, because I'm a Normal Person.

The issue isn't people wanting to tank Highguard's launch, it's the fact they're able to. Steam reviews are an imperfect method of judging a game at any time, but free-to-play games have it much worse. Games that cost $70 have that up-front cost to protect them from bad faith reviewers. Even if someone was so intent on posting a bad review that they planned to buy the fame, leave the review, and then refund it within Steam's generous allowances, that cost puts enough people off that it rarely constitutes a full bomb and it lands amid the genuine reviews like a light smattering of SMG rounds sprayed into the abyss.

Free-to-play games don't have this luxury. Anyone can install Highguard, load up the menu, leave a baseless, scathing review, and immediately uninstall again. They lose nothing by doing so, other than a few minutes of their time. While Highguard is by no means the first game to be review bombed, it has shown the world that Steam reviews are an outdated system that are too easily manipulated by bad actors. This disproportionately affects free-to-play games, but can have far worse impacts on indie studios if their first title receives a similar treatment due to its LGBTQ+ representation, themes of inclusivity, or some other equally baffling reason.

Steam reviews are an important tool for discoverability on the platform, but they're easily manipulated. I just hope that Highguard has the profile for Valve to finally take notice and actually change something. Players need to be able to voice their opinions, but perhaps there should be a minimum number of hours played before you can review? That would leave short games out of luck, so it's not the perfect answer, but there must be another way. It could be as simple as Valve divorcing reviews from discoverability and having fairer systems in Steam's backend.

I haven't played enough of Highguard to know exactly where my opinion lies, but it's certainly not a terrible game, and it's one I'm willing to wait for as the developers navigate the live-service space to hopefully answer players' biggest queries. But if Highguard's legacy is finally forcing Valve to change its archaic systems, then perhaps the bland, Titanfall-baiting TGA trailer will have been worth it after all.