Highguard Developers Interview: Inspirations, Aspirations and Hidden In-Game Secrets

23 hours ago 1

Published Jan 26, 2026, 1:00 PM EST

Laurence is an avid writer, gamer, and traveller with several years of journalistic writing experience under his belt. Having helped create a student-focused magazine at university, he is keen to reach the gaming community with his guides and game reviews.

Whether it's trudging through the world of Elden Ring, or grinding out raids in Old School Runescape, Laurence is always up for a challenge. However, in real life, his current challenge is learning how to speak Spanish and cooking authentic Mexican cuisine.

Last week, I had the opportunity not only to attend a hands-on preview of Highguard, the upcoming raid-shooter from Wildlight Entertainment, but also to interview 2 senior members of its development team, Carlos Pineda (Lead game designer) and Jason McCord (Design and Creative Director).

Here, I was able to ask some questions about the game’s inception, its inspirations, and even some details about balancing decisions.

This team comes with years of experience, and by golly did that experience show in the game itself. Here, this talented group of devs is eager to show the world something fresh, something new, and something that’s going to cause shockwaves across the gaming world. Highguard is certainly going to turn some heads, that’s for sure!

Interview with Wildlight Developers

Laurence: I wanted to start with the initial spark to Highguard, that initial bud. How did it grow and blossom from there?

Carlos: So from the beginning, you know, day one of Wildlight recording, Chad and I were gathered in a room just being like, what are we going to make? We knew it was going to be a shooterbecause we sort of said that, right? So we're not going to do something weird like a racing game. We don't know how to make that. We know how to make shooters.

And the real question was, what were we going to make? And so, whatever we made, we wanted to make sure that it was going to be something that people care about and offer something that you haven't seen before. Because these games come out and pull people's time, and if you're going to release a game, why should I care about it?

So we wanted to make sure that we had an answer to that, and so that's the quest throughout. That involves doing a lot of research. We played a lot of games, you know, Sea of Thieves, and do you know what Minecraft Bedwars is?

Laurence: Bed Wars? No, I haven’t heard of it.

Carlos: Yes. I didn't know about it either until I asked my nephew. I said, hey, what do your friends play? And he's like, oh, Minecraft. I was like, oh, cool, you guys just like go and play creative or something? He's like, no, no, no, no. We play bed wars. And I was like, what's that?

And so I went home and downloaded it that night. So it's this 8-player game where we blow up each other's bases. And again, the topic of Rust came up, I don't remember why. So I looked up some YouTube videos, and I came in the next day and was like, have you seen this game?

And I showed them this montage. It was the top 20 Rust raid moments. And it's just clip after clip. It's just like rockets firing, raiding each other’s bases. And we were like, wow, that looks really cool. And so we went, and we played Rust!

Jason: The whole team. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the ten of us at the time, if that.

Carlos: We're like, let's go play this game. And, you know, if you've ever played Rust, you sort of discover the raids are towards the end. So there's a lot of not raiding happening up front. But when we did get to those raids, they were super fun.

So we asked ourselves, how about just that part of Rust? Could we make that a game? Is that a game? And we were like, yeah, I think we could try. And so that's sort of our launching point.

Laurence: I think it's interesting how some of these games come from the community, really. I mean, thinking of that idea from Minecraft. And I was thinking of Auto-Chess as well. That came from Warcraft, right?

Carlos: But the most popular for me is DotA, right? League of Legends, before that incarnation, was Dota, and it was a super-popular mod.

Laurence: I was kind of interested, actually, speaking about MOBAs. I feel like there's some identity from MOBAs in this as well. It's interesting how you guys pull from lots of different sources. So that Highguard isn't just one thing. It's more of a collection of ideas. So if people don't like one element of it, well, there's something for everyone. Do you think it was important to cast a wide net?

Carlos: Yeah, I think it's more about creating something that people enjoy. But really, a lot of what exists now comes from years of prototyping. I think we cast a wide net just because we weren't sure what to make, and so we were like, we think it's this. And for the recording, I had my hands out.

So the first version of this game was something like eight teams on a giant map trying to raid each other, and those matches would last hours and hours and hours. It wouldn’t end. And half the time, you wouldn't see anybody because everyone was so spread out.

But again, it had these moments when the raid popped off, which was really cool, and so it was just trying to shave off as much extra fat as we could until we got to this before.

Laurence: You had to scale it down over time until it got to that perfect point.

Jason: I think what's exciting about the way we made this game is that we didn't start with the formula. We didn't start with a MOBA or something and say, like, we're going to make a MOBA, but with horses, right? Like, not even close.

We started with the simple concept of: We want to raid bases and do that competitively. So that's what we built. We just built a rocket launcher, some guns, and then we built some bases. And then we just raided each other, and it was like, how does this game end? Oh, it doesn't. We haven't built that yet. We don't even know how it's going to end. But we're having fun blowing each other up. So we're like, okay, the nugget is there.

And then, we sort of designed it through problem-solving a little bit, too, right? The game never ends. So how can we solve that? Well, Carlos had an idea. What if we put up a health bar and make everything that you do cause damage? That'll probably work.

And so it feels like nothing that exists out there because we didn't look at anything first. We just built a thing and then solved the problems.

Carlos: And a lot of that in the design process. It was pretty difficult because, again, you couldn't go like, oh, we got this problem. And it's really bad. And so, how should we solve it? You can't go, well, that game solved it like this, so we'll just do that? No game is doing what we're doing. So we are having to solve every problem in its own unique space.

Laurence: Yeah. That's interesting, actually. Do you think when you initially released that first trailer at the Game Awards, people didn't really understand what the objective behind it was? Because as soon as I saw your newest trailer, with the raiding focus, I thought, ah, yes, okay, I totally understand now.

Jason: We made that trailer to announce a game and to entertain. And I think, you know, in hindsight, we're really close to the game, obviously. We saw the elements in that trailer, and we were like, yeah, the people will know what's going on. And in hindsight, that was not the case.

Laurence: So, where do you kind of see the game in, well, I don't want to say 10 years, but in the next few? How did you plan on really expanding the experience to see if it has that longevity?

Carlos: So this game mode is in its infancy, but we've been playing this game for two years. We haven't really discovered all the things about this mode, and I think when it gets into people's hands, we're going to learn a lot of stuff as people learn about the mode and play and try to exploit things, you know, try to find the best strategies.

I think it's one of the most exciting things about developing a game in live service, and particularly this kind of sort of game in its infancy, is how the game can evolve over time with the community. And so I'm really excited to see what comes out of that feedback.

Jason: I'll double down on that, even a little bit, from just like more of a product level. You know, the game can go in a lot of directions based on what the community does. Right? And it's an important philosophy for us to have a game that we like, put it out, and then when the community starts leaning in one way or the other, or many ways, that's where we deliver.

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And there are lots of ways that can go, right? Like, we think this game is very competitive. I can see maybe an esports thing going on. I would love that. We were both there when Apex Legends went into esports, and we were just like, lean in, give them features. It's so cool.

We would love to do that. But we want the community to come and ask for it and start needing it. Same for telling stories. We built a universe that we can only express right now through multiplayer matches. You know, characters talking in the game. We'd love to tell more stories and do something like that. When players show up for it and ask for it, we will deliver it. If players don't, then we won’t. So that's kind of where I'm really excited to go.

Gameplay Focused Discussion

Laurence: I think once people get to terms with the multiplayer aspect, then they'll start thinking, "I love this character, where do they come from?" And you can build a story around that. And I think that will come as people kind of get into it more and more.

So, in terms of game balance, how would you guys approach buffs and nerfs to your characters? Because obviously, you guys have been playing a lot of these characters. But as soon as it gets into the players' hands, I'm sure you'll see that different people of different skill levels are going to gravitate towards different characters. And certain characters are going to be really powerful in certain hands and others, not so. So how would you begin approaching that?

Carlos: The process we took on Apex, I think, sometimes things are more powerful with certain people, and less powerful with others. So it's really like taking a scalpel to all of that and dissecting where the problem is, trying to solve that specific problem without ruining the rest of it. So I think taking that approach is going to be really important.

Unless something is very, very clearly dominant across the board, then okay, that's easy, nerf it.

Laurence: So this is primarily an FPS, shooter first. How do you feel about the character's abilities not scaling with the guns? Because we know you can upgrade the guns. You've got your normal, blue, purple, and orange rarities. They get bigger magazines, they get more powerful. But the characters don't scale. How do you feel about balancing that?

Carlos: Yeah, that's a good question. You know, if it is something that I think becomes a real problem, we can easily look into it. In our playtesting, it hasn't seemed like it's been a problem.

And again, so the other thing is, when the guns upgrade, they don't actually do more damage, right? They get bigger magazines, and they get more stability.

Jason: The gold ones do.

Carlos: Oh, yeah. A couple of gold ones do. I think, but they only do for headshots.

When you get into a fight, for the most part, we want the guns to be the deciding factor in how that game plays out.

Laurence: It's like impact rounds, right?

Carlos: Yeah, impact rounds do more damage. So, in theory, it shouldn't affect it too much. But again, if it becomes a problem, we're there to fix it and put up patches.

Jason: But also philosophically, you hit that nail on the head, right?

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And then, in some ways, the character's abilities do scale with the match a little bit. When you get a little more used to some of the nuances, you'll notice that. You've probably seen some of the amulets that improve tactical cooldown, or they improve ultimate cooldown. And that seems kind of basic at first, but soon you'll start to realise that certain characters, like Atticus and Kai, their Ultimates are game-clinching. It takes a lot of the game for them to build up, though, so that's kind of how you balance.

Kai can only maybe do one ult, maybe two ults in a long game. But if you collect a bunch of ultimate chargers throughout the match, it escalates. The more you collect, the longer you play, and you can do ult after ult.

Laurence: So what does success mean for you guys? You’re an independent studio, unbound by numbers. In that regard, what do you want to see on this first launch week?

Jason: I mean, honestly, success to me looks like we get to keep making this game and making cool content. We've got a lot of content that we're already making is largely done. Some of it is very early. We've got all this stuff, like an internal Playtest that has so much more content in it. And we just want to keep making this game.

So I feel confident knowing that, here, the reception today has been awesome, by the way, so good. I feel like we've got a game that can get a core audience, and success for me is keeping that core audience and building it over time.

Laurence: So to finish up, are there any secrets in the game that nobody has discovered yet?

Carlos: There are a lot of really cool, unorthodox strategies, right? Like, one is setting up zip lines in your own base. People have discovered that, oh, if I set up these routes on my base, it helps me defend the base. I think that's really cool.

Laurence: That's fascinating because I think there's so much that people are going to discover. Over time, I think those kinds of rogue strategies will evolve, and other people will develop other strategies counter them. And that's why the competitive scene is so cool. I think it will be amazing. Those final, last-minute raids on the base, when two teams know exactly what they're doing. I reckon, on a competitive level, that would be amazing to watch.

Jason: And this is a little more Easter eggy, but our lead level designer has told me that every base and map has Blue Jay plushies hidden in them.

Carlos: I think it's every map.

Jason: Our project name was Blue Jay. That's just what we had until we had a real name. We were Blue Jay. And one of the artists made a little plushy of a blue Jay with some sunglasses on, and, of course, the level designers were like, yoink! So they dropped them in, and I don't even know where they are. They're in there somewhere.

Laurence: I'm sure people are going to be searching for them.

Jason: Oh, yeah, 100%.

Carlos: I want to see all the YouTube videos showing all the positions.

Laurence: Yeah, definitely. Within the first week, I'm sure people will be scouting and scouring every single map. Well, thank you so much for everything. It’s been a pleasure.

Carlos: I hope you enjoyed the game.