Highguard makes 5v5 mode permanent, following fans' positive response

1 week ago 4

Published Feb 3, 2026, 5:50 AM EST

'The response has been overwhelming'

The player in Highguard wielding the rocket launcher and blowing up a wall while another player runs towards the explosion.

Yesterday, Polygon's Claire Lewis advocated for the new 5v5 mode in Highguard to be made permanent. Just a few hours later, Wildlight Entertainment did exactly that.

Claire, unfortunately, is not a soothsayer, but she evidently shared the opinion of most Highguard players. In the above tweet, the devs explained there was a "fairly even split between 3v3 and 5v5" over the weekend, and in a press release, it described the response as "overwhelming."

The news has been received enthusiastically by fans. Reddit user MuriloVeratti described 5v5 as "instantly and absolutely far better. Like, wow, it is such an improvement." Meanwhile, another user suggests 5v5 is kept as the casual mode and that 3v3 is used for competitive and ranked play, since it's much more tactical, while Friendly_Cowboy applauds Wildlight Entertainment's "ability to keep the finger on the pulse of the community and make changes quickly" as "genuinely super impressive."

On Steam, Highguard launched to just shy of 100,000 concurrent players according to SteamDB, but within a few hours, that number had started to drop, and in just over a week, it seems to have now found its floor with a 24-hour peak of 8,000. That doesn't account for console players, so despite our Highguard review being fairly damning of the 3v3 mode, time will tell if the increase in team size can bring some players who weren't impressed back to the game.

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