How do you follow one of the most hilarious first-person shooters ever created? Turns out: give us a skateboard and tell us to get nuts. During a recent hands-on opportunity with an early build of High On Life 2, I could instantly recognize many returning hallmarks from the original, most notably the return of the talking weaponry, Gatlians, but also the ability to use Knifey’s grapple to pull me onto ledges, and tons of sharply written dialog that blend this wild universe together. But it was skateboarding that really caught my attention.

Picking up some time after the end of High On Life, the hands-on preview kicked off with me skydiving into the world of ConCon (Convention Convention), which is a planet full of floating platforms housing (you guessed it) conventions. A bounty has led us here, targeting senator Muppy Doo, a politician who is in league with the evil executives at Rhea Pharmaceuticals who are intent on turning humankind into… prescription pills.

My mission? Make my way through multiple conventions to find him. First up is ParkingCon, a collection of crashed cars piled on top of each other with dozens of aliens fighting over the few remaining parking spaces – one space was even being “held” by a plastic chair – and we need to free one up to give returning character Gene’s flying Winnebago a chance to park by any means necessary (e.g. shooting aliens).  At first, I came to this with the approach of a standard first-person shooter, focusing on enemy groups one at a time, trying to clear these parking spaces, and cycling between my two available Gatlians: Sweezy (laser pistol) and Gus (shotgun). Then I hopped on the skateboard and everything changed.

High On Life Pro Skater Edition

The skateboard effectively replaces your sprint button, but it’s the speed and agility that comes with it that makes it such a game changer. The more I moved around the level on the board, the more objects I found to grind on by pressing the LB button, like handrails and concrete dividers. I even found some sections that resembled quarter pipes and noticed that certain cars were positioned just right to give the impression they were ramps to jump off. That’s when it dawned on me that this entire level was basically a skatepark! This is going to be great.

The speed of battle really picked up the more I became comfortable finding areas to grind, while cutting down enemies left and right with Sweezy and Gus. I could even “throw” my skateboard at enemies for a one-hit kill and found it hugely helpful that the same button tied to grinding was also Knifey’s head-latching ability, which would smartly pull me to rails or grindable objects if I was going to be coming up short. It means you can get into a real flow, even in a game where you wouldn’t expect it.

If you recall from the first game, traversal with Knifey’s grapple was a big component, unlocking a variety of environmental and platform puzzles. Now with the inclusion of the skateboard, the platforming aspects are all amplified and it wasn’t long until the demo started showcasing what else I could do.

Continuing to the next floating zone involved grinding on floating buses, bouncing on giant inflatable balloons, and then wall riding to safely cross a chasm of clouds, where I reached PoliCon (a politics convention). The skatepark motif continued here as well, with plenty of handrails and other objects to grind swiftly across this new zone, moving through to my next objective. And that’s when our personal assistant Suit-O stepped in.

So, What Else Can You Do?

For our demo, Suit-O was ever vigilant in popping up at the bottom of the screen and making sure we stayed on schedule for our 30-minute preview – intentionally fast-forwarding us through highlights of the demo, and “accidentally” leading us to the conclusion of a boss battle with one of the game’s new characters, Sheath, voiced by the amazing Ralph Ineson. What followed was a hilarious (and bloody) dissection of his alien bounty hunter character – whose head is then transformed into a new Gatlian. Yep, a boss voiced by a famous actor is also a gun in this game.

Sheath complimented Sweezy and Gus nicely with the feel of a battle rifle – Halo fans might find the familiar “punch” here — and his alt-attack is an Impaling Spike that can be used to string together subsequent targets and to create Spike ziplines, which I later use to cross over to the next convention, MurderCon (it’s exactly what you might think it is). I love that these Metroidvania-like components are still present from the previous game, opening areas formerly unreachable once you have acquired the specific tool to do the job.

Shoot, Shoot, Shoot!

Once we’ve stepped through the gates into MurderCon, the demo’s narrative shifted slightly to focus on Knifey who, as returning players may recall, loves to get bloody. He was predictably overjoyed to attend a convention that’s all about one of his favorite subject matters. Before I knew it, we were neck deep in a battle royale, surrounded by a laser tag arena aesthetic with lots of neon strewn about. And, yes, tons of enemies to shoot at. The speedy traversal elements took a backseat here, as the demo showcased more of a traditional multiplayer-like shooter layout, allowing us to lean more into our Gatlians and their abilities.

Sheath feels great with that perfect battle rifle punch, and using his Impaling Spike to tie groups of enemies together was incredibly fun. Sweezy is still a solid laser pistol with an alt-attack that creates a slowdown bubble that surrounds a group of enemies. And Gus’ shotgun and disc shot abilities are great at clearing crowds of enemies. All this fighting culminated in a boss battle with a large, ogre-like character named Brutus, who had a giant pyramid-like helmet fused to his head. It wasn’t long after that me and my Gatlians made short work of him and were crowned winners of MurderCon.

Finally, I was whisked forward once again by Suit-O to face off with Muppy Doo. At first, the encounter was your standard fare of dodging incoming attacks and unleashing some hurt with my Gatlians. But it was the next phase of the battle that I wasn’t quite ready for – and was unlike anything I’ve played. The final boss battle took place… in the menu screen.

See, Muppy Doo has a shrinking ability and was able to get so small that he snuck into my suit’s mainframe and tied up Suit-O. After freeing Suit-O by “clicking” on him, he became my mouse cursor as I clicked through my menu screen, trying to uncover the mini Muppy Doo who was trashing my sub systems.

Muppy would pop his head out from behind an icon, or start destroying menu items, and we’d punch him, forcing him to duck into another sub-menu. After a bit of this click-tag, it became worse for my character, forcing a full system reboot and deleting my save game… which rebooted into an entirely different game – Bible Adventures. No, really. Eventually, things continued to escalate to the point where the only solution was to have Knifey stab me to death – which he was more than willing to oblige. And thus, we wrapped up our time with High On Life 2.

A few games under their belt now, I like that Squanch Games is really starting to settle into a mindset of, “Wouldn’t it be funny if…” and find ways to go through with it, while making it incredible fun (and incredibly funny) in the process. Finding that balance is not an easy thing to do – kind of like trying to ride a skateboard while blasting aliens in the face. Of which we’re very excited to try more of once High On Life 2 launches for Xbox Series X|S on February 13, 2026, available on day one with Game Pass Ultimate.

High On Life 2

Squanch Games, Inc.

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

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You’ve done it. You’ve taken down an intergalactic cartel, brought humanity back from the brink of extinction, and hunted dangerous bounties to the far corners of the galaxy. Bounty hunting has brought you fortune, fame and love; but when a mysterious figure from your past reappears and puts a price on your sister’s head, your cushy life gets thrown into chaos.

Do you have what it takes to risk it all and bring down an intergalactic conspiracy that once again threatens your favorite species (humans)?

High On Life RETURNS as you and your beloved rag-tag team of alien misfits shoot, stab, and skate your way through gorgeous, dangerous worlds all across the galaxy to blow up the EVIL pharmaceutical conglomerate hell-bent on putting price tags on HUMAN LIFE!