Today's Highguard major update delivers a new hero who's a wolf in all forms including physical, awoooo

Genre soupy shooter Highguard’s second big update arrives today, February 6th. It’ll deliver a new hero to guard those pesky highs in the form of Ekon, a bloke who can transform into a wolf. Developers Wildlight have also aimed to ensure the game’s gang of established heroes don’t feel left out by adding a free wolf mount, alongside a new map called Skydrift and a 3v3 ranked mode.

“Ekon doesn’t ride an animal into battle, he becomes one—transforming into a powerful direwolf that tracks, hunts, and runs down mounted enemies,” Wildlight wrote of the new hero in the notes for whjat they’ve dubbed the episode 2 patch. “While in this form, Ekon’s speed is unmatched by other mounts. Through a full third-person point of view, the direwolf can see around cover. When moving in for an attack, weapons are laid down in favor of Ekon’s deadly bite attack, which will dash forward and bite a prey before immediately transforming back to human form to finish off the job. Attacking without a target will allow Ekon to perform a small air dash to traverse maps more athletically. In addition, while in Wolf Form, Ekon can track an enemy’s scent that they leave in their path.”

Naturally, his ultimate attack’s a big howl that makes opponents scared, with other abilities including a keen sense for foes’ heartbeats and the option to send a wolf spirit to track them down. Those all sound like they’ll come in handy during 3v3 or 5v5 battles on the Skydrift map, which is comprised of a floating lost city you battle your way up via plenty of bouncing around, zip-lining, and bridge crossing.

Or, you can paw your way into the new ranked mode, which sees you compete to climb a tree of seven titles in 3v3 battles. Wildlight wrote that they’ve opted to limit this mode to trios because that setup is “the more tactical structure of the game and fits best”, but are open to feedback as to whether they’ve gotten that right.

Naturally, the higher up the ranking tree you get by the end of each ranked “split” – of which there’ll be two per “episode”, which looks to be the silly name Wildlight are stick with for periods between major updates – the better rewards you get. On the topic of loot, this patch sees the devs roll out four improvements designed to augment the lootage. These are adding masterwork weapons to the red weapon chests at points of interest, making the barrels that contain ultimate chargers glow, adding waypoint markers to guide you towards location with gear, and ensuring speed gates are permanently powered on.

If you’ve yet to give Highguard a go despite Geoff Keighley advocating for it more vocally than I do for that Fallout game about the guy from Friends leaving you for dead, make sure to check out James’ impressions of it.