After I sat all the way down to play High on Life 2 for the primary time, I used to be optimistic but in addition barely skeptical. I’m hardly alone once I say that I beloved the primary one – it was a uncommon instance of a genuinely humorous sport and it occurred to be a wonderful first-person shooter in addition. However making sequels to comedies isn’t any positive factor – simply have a look at the lengthy checklist of nice comedy movies that obtained unhealthy follow-ups. How would a online game comedy sequel fare?
If the hour of High on Life 2 I performed is any indication, it’s obtained a fantastic likelihood to be as humorous as – and presumably much more enjoyable on the gameplay aspect than – the 2022 authentic. In that hour alone, I wandered round a ravishing beachside alien city, met a semi-depressed new gun named Travis and obtained fully wasted with him, impressed some alien youngsters with my skateboarding expertise, circumcised an enormous alien phallus with a laser, stole the fedora from the 1996 film Dunston Checks In, tried (unsuccessfully) to resolve a homicide thriller, and bounty-hunted a billionaire who, sure, met his demise. Did I snigger alongside the way in which? Yup. Is the first-person shooter fight improved from the unique? Definitely. Did I respect the number of gameplay inside this small slice of the marketing campaign? Most undoubtedly sure. Like I stated, I went in optimistic, however when my demo ended I used to be extra excited than ever for High on Life 2’s February 13, 2026 launch.
Skate or Die
I started in Pinkline Harbor, a seashore city with a bar, a skate store, a bar and grill overlooking the ocean, and extra. It didn’t take lengthy for me to search out hassle, as a pair of fellow bounty hunters accosted me and finally acknowledged me as a mark with an enormous bounty on my very own head. After taking them out, the bottleneck was clear and I used to be free to discover the harbor.
This gave me my first style of High on Life 2’s new traversal mechanic: skateboarding. I’ve performed numerous first-person shooters in my day, however I’m undecided I’ve ever performed an FPS with skateboarding in it till now. And I’ve to say, I really like how developer Squanch Video games has carried out it right here. It’s mainly your run operate. If you press the dash button, your outlaw hero deploys their board and begins using. You may grind on rails to essentially get across the open playspaces quicker, and also you’ve obtained momentum like an precise skateboard does, too, permitting you to catch air when you’re skating in, say, an empty pool on a cruise ship. I’m actually to see how the skateboarding will get utilized all through the marketing campaign; I already noticed it integrated right into a primary puzzle in my demo.
After fixing that easy locked-door puzzle with the assistance of my skateboard, I cruised into Pinkbellies Bar and Grill and met Travis, a down-on-his-luck alien (who occurs to be a gun) who’s getting drunk on the bar after a combat along with his spouse. It’s right here we see a welcome tweak to the primary High on Life: you now have dialogue decisions for every of your gun characters; when you select one which’s from a unique gun than what you’re holding, you’ll put that gun away and take out the one whose response you’ve chosen. This enables for loads of humorous choices, and whereas I wouldn’t say this alone encourages replayability, when you do occur to run via High on Life 2 greater than as soon as, a minimum of you may make sure that you gained’t hear all the very same dialogue.
Maintain Your Liquor
You’ve obtained to maintain Travis glad as you faux to be his ingesting buddy, as he’s obtained a spare ticket for the cruise ship you’ll want to get aboard, since that’s the place your goal – the billionaire Larry Pinkstock – is believed to be. And so there’s a literal Pleased-O-Meter that you just’ll fill by dancing in a DDR-like minigame, enjoying darts whereas hammered, and drawing a portrait of Travis. Naturally, this results in a bar combat and also you vomiting and blacking out and waking up on the seashore. Did my actions throughout any a part of this gameplay sequence appear to essentially matter? Not likely. However did I snigger all through it? Completely.
Naturally, getting aboard the ship isn’t as simple as merely strolling onto it; you’ll have to combat your approach via some extra bounty-hunting unhealthy guys. This battle offers you a great sense of how traversal – from the skateboard to utilizing Knifey as a grappling hook – is organically woven into fight. When you maintain transferring you’ll be powerful to carry down, notably while you combine in frequent use of every gun’s particular assault; they’re every on a cooldown, so you may’t spam them. Fight undoubtedly feels extra layered on this sequel than it did within the first sport. In different phrases, you’ve obtained extra choices at your disposal in any given encounter, and that’s a great factor.
As soon as aboard the ship, referred to as the Pinkline Panacea, you’ll want to surrender your weapons on the safety checkpoint earlier than having fun with the perks of your VIP ticket – which incorporates the spotlight of the night, a homicide thriller occasion. Thus, getting dressed up for the massive occasion is a should, so Travis buys you each wild, matching Austin Powers-looking purple fits from a vendor who appears to be like suspiciously like an alien model of John Waters.
Laser That Wiener
Anyway, I wanted to get my mates – aka my weapons – again, and so Travis and I wandered into Pinkstock’s museum to seek for them. We didn’t discover them, however we did discover the fedora worn by Dunston the orangutan in Dunston Checks In, which Travis immediately turned obsessive about. So, the way to get it for him with out alerting safety? Properly, as luck would have it, the adjoining museum piece is a huge alien phallus, arrange for museum patrons to circumcise utilizing the circumcision laser. I gained’t spoil the puzzle answer, however let’s simply say that sure, I did get Travis that fedora. And buying it was a really humorous course of.
Extra exploration of the ship led us to the Lido Deck, the place a gang of unruly teenagers had managed to get their arms on Knifey. And in a transparent humorous nod to Tony Hawk, the kids agreed to return Knifey – if I confirmed off my skateboarding expertise by accumulating the letters scattered across the deck…that occurred to spell out the phrase “gonads.” L-O-L. And as you may already see, High on Life 2 is chock filled with selection, and I haven’t even advised you about the perfect a part of my demo but…
Whodunnit?
After battling some extra bounty hunters on the Lido Deck who had been trying to money in on the worth on my head, I made my approach again to my cabin and handed out earlier than the occasion. As soon as we obtained to the VIP homicide thriller bash, I discovered 4 unusual fellow friends, and shortly our mysterious host appeared.
I anticipated a very mild little bit of clue-gathering on this sequence, and if that’s all it had been, High on Life 2 nonetheless would’ve earned factors in my e-book for persevering with to combine up the gameplay. Nonetheless, developer Squanch Video games had different concepts. The homicide thriller isn’t any joke, each tonally and difficulty-wise. The staff clearly took this part very significantly, and as such you’ll want to speak to all 4 suspects repeatedly, scour the room for each apparent and hidden clues, make notes in your on-screen notepad, and finally not simply accuse one of many 4, however have collected sufficient proof and made sufficient connections to determine a motive and credibly pin the crime on one in every of them. I’m purposely not going to say any extra about this as a result of I don’t need to spoil any of it for you, however I’ll admit that whereas I did find yourself accusing the right individual, I hadn’t solidly established a motive, and thus, I failed to resolve the homicide thriller. I can’t wait to play this once more within the last model of the sport as a way to take one other crack at it.
Who’s the Boss?
I escaped the homicide thriller through a water slide that took me to the decrease deck. This led to a different huge battle the place I obtained to check out one other new weapon in High on Life 2: the Flint Turtles. They’re temporary-use pickups within the sensible sense, and within the literal sense, they’re lovely reptiles who occur to breathe hearth, making for handy single-use flamethrowers. One miniboss combat and some extra rounds of standard fight later and I lastly discovered myself on the finish of my demo in a correct boss combat towards Kreg, the chief of the bounty hunter gang that had been harassing me all through my demo.
Kreg proved to be a reasonably conventional first-person shooter boss foe. He had assault patterns to study and weak moments the place I might actually let him have it. I wouldn’t say this combat was higher than the wonderful boss battles within the first High on Life, nevertheless it was an attractive sufficient encounter.
All advised, I used to be pleasantly stunned by my hour with High on Life 2. Not stunned that it was good, to be clear – I anticipated that – however reasonably delighted by simply how properly the gameplay has developed from the primary sport, and the way a lot sensible, humorous, and surprising selection there was all through the gameplay. I wasn’t merely capturing your entire time. Removed from it! If the entire of High on Life 2 matches what my one-hour slice delivered to the desk, then it’s going to be a really welcome addition to Xbox – together with Sport Go on day one – PC, and PS5.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s govt editor of previews and host of each IGN’s weekly Xbox present, Podcast Unlocked, in addition to our month-to-month(-ish) interview present, IGN Unfiltered. He is a North Jersey man, so it is “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.