Developer Squanch Games’ action-comedy FPS High On Life is now available to play. Here we’ve got all the details as well as a roundup of the game’s early reviews.
About the game:
Story:
Fresh out of high school with no job and no ambition, you’ve really got nothing going for you until an alien cartel that wants to get high off humanity invades Earth. Now, you and a team of charismatic talking guns must answer the hero’s call and become the deadliest intergalactic bounty hunter the cosmos has ever seen.
Travel to a variety of biomes and locations across the cosmos, go up against the nefarious Garmantuous and his gang of goons, collect loot, meet unique characters, and more, in the latest comedy adventure from Justin Roiland!
High On Life Official Launch Trailer
Watch the official High On Life Launch trailer:
Game summary:
- From the co-creator of Rick & Morty and Solar Opposites.
- Similar style to Rick and Morty but not officially related in any way.
- Single player only, mature-rated.
- Play a bounty hunter who rescues and teams up with charismatic, talking guns
- Set out to hunt the nefarious Garmantuous, using the unique skills of each talking gun to deal with his gang of alien cartel goons as you go
- Travel to various planets and locations around the cosmos.
- Navigate dynamic and changing environments, such as a jungle paradise, a city build inside an asteroid, and the hub of the cosmos.
- Complete hunter challenges
- Collect alien technology
- Meet an array of weird, hilarious characters along the way
- Features text-only localized languages (English, French, Italian, German, Spanish)
- Optimized for the Xbox Series X/S and playable in 4K Ultra HD.
Review Roundup
Early reviews for High On Life are out and are generally favourable.
Metacritic currently has the game tracking at 76/100.
OpenCritic reviews are much the same, with the game tracking at 73/100.
Here’s a selection of early review scores and their commentary:
Game Rant scored the game 80/100:
High on Life is…a consistently entertaining game from start to finish. It proves Squanch Games is capable of delivering an excellent traditional gaming experience alongside its high-quality VR titles, and it will be exciting to see what the studio does next. Whether they play it through Xbox Game Pass or not, gamers should make it a point to play High on Life ASAP. It’s a wild ride that deserves to be experienced unspoiled.
Game Rant
Digital Trends scored the game 70/100:
Satisfying combat, smooth traversal, and a smattering of hilarious vignettes make for an admirable adventure game whose individual parts are more memorable than the full picture. Just don’t ask me why I have an achievement that says I spent 15 hours in an alien strip club.
Digital Trends
PC Invasion scored the game 85/100:
If you like Roiland’s comedic and storytelling styles, this is your game. If you just want a good open-ish first-person shooter, you’ll also get that here. This is an excellent comedy game that features a much higher budget than I think I’ve ever seen one have before, so it’s easy to sit back and laugh while blasting alien heads off.
PC Invasion
Games Radar scored the game 70/100:
The desire for more surmounts the further you push into High on Life. While the main narrative thrust is certainly fun, and full of surprises and smart subversions of genre tropes, the story does land flat on its face by the end. While the ‘B-story’ which tracks your sister and her attempt to date an alien, and the ‘C-story’ following Gene and government officials, fail to resolve in a satisfactory fashion. Then again, all things considered, it’s surprising that High on Life works as well as it does. It’s incessantly loud, frequently unhinged, incredibly funny, and an intergalactic trip that is absolutely worth taking.
Games Radar
Noisy Pixel scored the game 80/100:
High on Life knows what it wants to be and delivers that experience to players who likely want the same thing. The level of humor and writing is on another level. Still, you’ll want to pace yourself, if only not to grow tired of the waves of enemies you’ll encounter, which is thankfully broken up with platforming sections and standout interactions. The phrase, “Made by gamers, for gamers,” has never rung truer than when describing High on Life.
Noisy Pixel
TechRaptor scored the game 8/10:
Let’s be real for a second: High on Life isn’t reinventing the wheel. To the game’s credit, it’s difficult to do something in the FPS genre we’ve never seen before. Though, I am confident in High on Life‘s ability to provide players with a good time. You are guaranteed to laugh and have fun. If that’s not the purpose of video games, then I don’t know what is.
TechRaptor
XboxEra scored the game 9/10:
What you have under an incredibly imaginative and well-made FPS, is a lot of heart, great humor, and a surprisingly engaging story. I haven’t laughed or chuckled as much as this since Portal 2. You should absolutely play this – it’s a great end to the year for Xbox users.
XboxEra
Monster Vine scored the game 4.5/5:
High On Life is easily one of the funniest games I’ve played in a while and is a great game to close the year out with.
Monster Vine
And while reviews are tracking generally favourably, not everyone agrees:
Eurogamer recommend players ‘avoid’ the game:
Aside from a botched attempt to rebottle Rick and Morty as a first-person shooter, High on Life is a covert playable manifesto for games in general as callous, explicit and made up of false choices – incubation vats, in short, for cavalier dickheads. If it took itself seriously enough to make statements, it might offer itself as an expression of the artform at its worst. It doesn’t want to be finished though, really. Much like the bisected teddybear you find bleeding out in one particular canyon, High on Life just wants to be put out of its misery.
Eurogamer
Destructoid scored the game 5.5/10:
As-is, High on Life is great weekend Game Pass pickup, and something to go into with caution if you’re a fan of Roiland’s work. I appreciate what Squanch Games is doing in the industry as a whole, but Trover Saves the Universe was a much better distillation of Roiland and company’s humor in a sounder package.
Destructoid
But Why Tho scored the game 3/10:
It is impossible for me to imagine what High on Life offers potential players who aren’t die-hard fans of Justin Roiland’s comedic style and voice acting. Anyone who isn’t thrilled at the idea of having Roiland constantly chattering in their ear for a dozen hours straight will likely find the game’s incessant need to force itself on the player annoying. With the addition of uncompelling combat, frustrating exploration, and a lack of anything else to offer players, High on Life is one of the most annoying, derivative, and slogging experiences in years. The only thing that keeps it from being entirely forgettable as an experience is how ingrained its annoyances get in one’s mind.
But Why Tho
Release Info
High On Life was released December 13 2022 on PC, Xbox One/Series X/S. It is a day one Game Pass release on Xbox.