High On Life 2: How a Skateboard, a Famous Actor, and Bible Adventures Make Up One of the Wildest Demos Ever

How do you observe one of the most hilarious first-person shooters ever created? Seems: give us a skateboard and inform us to get nuts. Throughout a current hands-on alternative with an early construct of High On Life 2, I may immediately acknowledge many returning hallmarks from the authentic, most notably the return of the speaking weaponry, Gatlians, but additionally the means to make use of Knifey’s grapple to drag me onto ledges, and tons of sharply written dialog that mix this wild universe collectively. Nevertheless it was skateboarding that actually caught my consideration.

Choosing up a while after the finish of High On Life, the hands-on preview kicked off with me skydiving into the world of ConCon (Conference Conference), which is a planet full of floating platforms housing (you guessed it) conventions. A bounty has led us right here, concentrating on senator Muppy Doo, a politician who’s in league with the evil executives at Rhea Prescription drugs who’re intent on turning humankind into… prescription tablets.

My mission? Make my approach via a number of conventions to seek out him. First up is ParkingCon, a assortment of crashed vehicles piled on high of one another with dozens of aliens preventing over the few remaining parking areas – one area was even being “held” by a plastic chair – and we have to free one as much as give returning character Gene’s flying Winnebago a likelihood to park by any means vital (e.g. capturing aliens).  At first, I got here to this with the strategy of a normal first-person shooter, specializing in enemy teams one at a time, attempting to clear these parking areas, and biking between my two obtainable Gatlians: Sweezy (laser pistol) and Gus (shotgun). Then I hopped on the skateboard and all the things modified.

High On Life Professional Skater Version

The skateboard successfully replaces your dash button, but it surely’s the pace and agility that comes with it that makes it such a recreation changer. The extra I moved round the stage on the board, the extra objects I discovered to grind on by urgent the LB button, like handrails and concrete dividers. I even discovered some sections that resembled quarter pipes and seen that sure vehicles had been positioned simply proper to provide the impression they had been ramps to leap off. That’s when it dawned on me that this complete stage was principally a skatepark! That is going to be nice.

The pace of battle actually picked up the extra I grew to become comfy discovering areas to grind, whereas reducing down enemies left and proper with Sweezy and Gus. I may even “throw” my skateboard at enemies for a one-hit kill and discovered it vastly useful that the similar button tied to grinding was additionally Knifey’s head-latching means, which might well pull me to rails or grindable objects if I used to be going to be arising quick. It means you may get into a actual circulation, even in a recreation the place you wouldn’t anticipate it.

For those who recall from the first recreation, traversal with Knifey’s grapple was a massive element, unlocking a selection of environmental and platform puzzles. Now with the inclusion of the skateboard, the platforming facets are all amplified and it wasn’t lengthy till the demo began showcasing what else I may do.

Persevering with to the subsequent floating zone concerned grinding on floating buses, bouncing on big inflatable balloons, and then wall driving to soundly cross a chasm of clouds, the place I reached PoliCon (a politics conference). The skatepark motif continued right here as nicely, with loads of handrails and different objects to grind swiftly throughout this new zone, shifting via to my subsequent goal. And that’s when our private assistant Swimsuit-O stepped in.

So, What Else Can You Do?

For our demo, Swimsuit-O was ever vigilant in popping up at the backside of the display screen and ensuring we stayed on schedule for our 30-minute preview – deliberately fast-forwarding us via highlights of the demo, and “by accident” main us to the conclusion of a boss battle with one of the recreation’s new characters, Sheath, voiced by the wonderful Ralph Ineson. What adopted was a hilarious (and bloody) dissection of his alien bounty hunter character – whose head is then reworked into a new Gatlian. Yep, a boss voiced by a well-known actor is additionally a gun on this recreation.

Sheath complimented Sweezy and Gus properly with the really feel of a battle rifle – Halo followers would possibly discover the acquainted “punch” right here — and his alt-attack is an Impaling Spike that can be utilized to string collectively subsequent targets and to create Spike ziplines, which I later use to cross over to the subsequent conference, MurderCon (it’s precisely what you would possibly suppose it’s). I really like that these Metroidvania-like parts are nonetheless current from the earlier recreation, opening areas previously unreachable after getting acquired the particular software to do the job.

Shoot, Shoot, Shoot!

As soon as we’ve stepped via the gates into MurderCon, the demo’s narrative shifted barely to give attention to Knifey who, as returning gamers might recall, likes to get bloody. He was predictably overjoyed to attend a conference that’s all about one of his favourite topic issues. Earlier than I knew it, we had been neck deep in a battle royale, surrounded by a laser tag area aesthetic with heaps of neon strewn about. And, sure, tons of enemies to shoot at. The speedy traversal components took a backseat right here, as the demo showcased extra of a conventional multiplayer-like shooter structure, permitting us to lean extra into our Gatlians and their skills.

Sheath feels nice with that excellent battle rifle punch, and utilizing his Impaling Spike to tie teams of enemies collectively was extremely enjoyable. Sweezy continues to be a strong laser pistol with an alt-attack that creates a slowdown bubble that surrounds a group of enemies. And Gus’ shotgun and disc shot skills are nice at clearing crowds of enemies. All this preventing culminated in a boss battle with a massive, ogre-like character named Brutus, who had a big pyramid-like helmet fused to his head. It wasn’t lengthy after that me and my Gatlians made quick work of him and had been topped winners of MurderCon.

Lastly, I used to be whisked ahead as soon as once more by Swimsuit-O to face off with Muppy Doo. At first, the encounter was your normal fare of dodging incoming assaults and unleashing some harm with my Gatlians. Nevertheless it was the subsequent section of the battle that I wasn’t fairly prepared for – and was in contrast to something I’ve performed. The ultimate boss battle befell… in the menu display screen.

See, Muppy Doo has a shrinking means and was capable of get so small that he snuck into my go well with’s mainframe and tied up Swimsuit-O. After liberating Swimsuit-O by “clicking” on him, he grew to become my mouse cursor as I clicked via my menu display screen, attempting to uncover the mini Muppy Doo who was trashing my sub methods.

Muppy would pop his head out from behind an icon, or begin destroying menu gadgets, and we’d punch him, forcing him to duck into one other sub-menu. After a bit of this click-tag, it grew to become worse for my character, forcing a full system reboot and deleting my save recreation… which rebooted into a wholly completely different recreation – Bible Adventures. No, actually. Ultimately, issues continued to escalate to the level the place the solely answer was to have Knifey stab me to demise – which he was greater than keen to oblige. And thus, we wrapped up our time with High On Life 2.

Just a few video games beneath their belt now, I like that Squanch Video games is admittedly beginning to settle into a mindset of, “Wouldn’t or not it’s humorous if…” and discover methods to undergo with it, whereas making it unimaginable enjoyable (and extremely humorous) in the course of. Discovering that steadiness isn’t a simple factor to do – form of like attempting to journey a skateboard whereas blasting aliens in the face. Of which we’re very excited to attempt extra of as soon as High On Life 2 launches for Xbox Collection X|S on February 13, 2026, obtainable on day one with Recreation Cross Final.