A confident comedy-FPS sequel that trades shock humor for sharper writing, smarter design, and a surprisingly heartfelt adventure across the galaxy.
When the first High on Life came out in 2022, it stood out from other shooters because it was heavy on absurdist comedy, improvised conversation, and talking weapons that never stopped making fun of things.
The developers, Squanch Games, made the game, and it was a big hit because it wasn’t as serious as most current first-person shooters. Its character, on the other hand, was closely linked to the comedic style of co-founder Justin Roiland, whose work defined the studio’s early work.
When Roiland left the company in 2023, many wondered whether they could keep the personality that made the first game stand out as an action game. Instead of giving up in the face of uncertainty, High on Life 2 comes out as a follow-up that is set on proving the opposite: that the idea, world, and design philosophy were always bigger than any one voice.
High on Life 2 picks up where the first game left off, with your intergalactic bounty hunter becoming famous for no reason.
As a result, the game feels more sure of itself, more focused, and surprisingly more serious, but it still has the silly tone that makes the series what it is. Fame, money, and a strong suit all make the future look good, but the game quickly ruins that illusion.
Almost right away, you lose everything and become one of the galaxy’s most wanted criminals. You, your sister Lizzy, and a group of resistance fighters are forced back into survival mode.
The main battle is about a pharmaceutical empire that does something horrible: they turn people into drugs. The idea is silly in a way that only High on Life can make it silly, but it’s also more satirical than before.
Instead of just being a way to deliver jokes, the story builds toward something more unified and emotionally real. One of the best things about the sequel’s story is how player choices change the experience in small ways.
NPC conversations, optional tasks, and choices that don’t seem important can change how characters interact with each other and even how the epilogue ends. The game doesn’t make it clear when something is important, so players are encouraged to react naturally instead of planning ahead. This way of telling the story makes it feel more personal without making the game into an RPG with multiple paths.
The writing still includes crude humor, breaking the fourth wall, and strange situations, such as long comedic bits like doing boring jobs for a lot longer than expected, but it balances those parts with real character growth. This time, the Gatlians, which are your intelligent weapons, feel more like friends than joke machines, and the way the main character and Lizzy interact as a family adds emotional depth.
By the time the story ends, the sequel does something that the first game never quite got right: it tells a funny shooter story that actually works.
High on Life 2 is still a first-person shooter for one player that is based around exploring, platforming, and fast-paced battles. Through main missions and optional content, players visit hub areas, perform bounty missions, travel to alien worlds, and improve their weapons.
One of the game’s main hubs is Circuit Arcadia, a huge city built on a ring world like Halo. Players can take missions, find puzzles, buy upgrades, and talk to NPCs from this point on. Exploration is more important than ever before, and there are secret Luglox containers all over the world that hold money, cosmetics, and upgrades for weapons.
A skateboard feature is added to Traversal, which changes it in a big way. The skateboard can be used for both movement and combat. It takes the place of standard sprinting and makes navigation feel more fluid. It’s possible to grind rails, do tricks in the air, wall-ride surfaces, and even attack with the board.
The sequel also tries to be different. Missions often bring in new ways to play for a short time before moving on to something else, like investigation scenes, platforming challenges, or planned comedy situations. The pace stays fast-paced throughout the 10–17-hour mission by adding new mechanics all the time.
The Gatlians are at the center of combat in High on Life 2.
Each has their own unique personality, skills, and way of shooting. Weapons aren’t just tools; they’re also people that respond to what the player does, says, and how they play. It becomes both a technical and a story-driven choice to switch between them.
Combat areas are meant to be chaotic, with lots of enemies that make it easy to move around and switch weapons quickly. Boss fights are often based on specific Gatlian skills, making them feel like puzzles where players need to know how weapons work to win.
The puzzle design is mostly related to exploring and moving forward in a Metroidvania-style way. Some places can only be reached by learning new skills, which encourages going back and finding things. There is a steady rhythm between shooting and fixing problems in environmental challenges that often mix traversal mechanics with weapon utilities.
Being creative is what makes High on Life 2 a great game to play. Because the game is always adding new mechanics, locations, and enemy combinations, fights rarely feel the same. The skateboard adds physical energy to both moving around and fighting, which makes movement feel more fluid than it did in the original game.
The depth of battle doesn’t always match the creativity.
There is a lack of depth in some enemy designs, even though the Gatlians are beautifully animated and full of personality. If you have unlimited ammunition and the game is easy, you might not need to use all of each weapon’s powers. Players might rely on their favorite guns instead of learning how to use all of them.
Puzzle parts are usually fun, but they’re not very heavy. They keep the game moving along without being too hard to understand, which fits with the game’s mood but can make progress feel too easy at times.
High on Life 2 doesn’t depend on standard ways of getting XP. Exploration, collecting cash, and upgrades found in Luglox containers or bought in hub areas are what move the story forward. When players finish side material, they get better weapons, better skateboards, and more ways to customize their looks.
This system promotes exploration without making you play the same game over and over. If you do the optional material, fights will be easier and more flexible, but if you just stick to the main story, you can still move forward without any problems. Heavy grinding isn’t present, which helps keep the pace steady and keeps the focus on fun and creativity.
High on Life 2 looks a lot better than the first game. The game was made with modern rendering technology and has bright alien landscapes, smooth weapon animations, and great lighting effects. Circuit Arcadia and other places feel dense and living, with creepy creatures, neon-lit buildings, and stories told by the environment.
The Gatlians are some of the most amazing things to look at because their animations show how they feel, which makes their personalities stand out.
The designs for aliens are always creative, but the designs for human characters look much less thorough. Heavy lighting and effects can make it hard to see enemies during battle, especially in scenes with a lot going on. Still, the show as a whole is bright, well-done, and easy to remember.
Audio creation is a big part of what makes High on Life 2 what it is. The dialogue is still the most important part of the experience, and voice artists like Ken Marino and Ralph Ineson do great jobs with it. The Gatlians say a huge amount of dialogue that makes sense in the context of the game and story. They react to gaming and story events with a spontaneous energy.
Sound mixing can feel off sometimes, with music and effects drowning out speech until the settings are changed. When everything is adjusted, the sound becomes one of the best parts of the game. The music is a mix of retro, lo-fi, and sci-fi sounds that make you feel calm between firefights and go with the funny pace of the game.
High on Life 2 is a rare type of sequel because it improves on the first game instead of just adding to it.
It gets rid of unnecessary cynicism, makes the story stronger, and adds important gameplay changes while keeping the series’ signature silly humor. It’s not perfect because of some technical problems and sometimes weak combat, but the creative missions, characters, and world design make it stand out in the world of shooters today. More than anything else, High on Life 2 feels like a company finding its voice again and proving who it is.
It is a single-player first-person shooter that puts personality over spectacle and imagination over scale. It is messy, funny, experimental, and shockingly heartfelt. That alone makes High on Life 2 worth celebrating in a game that is becoming more and more dominated by multiplayer trends and live-service models.
