High on Life 2: The Final Preview – IGN First

When I sat down to play High connected Life 2 for the archetypal time, I was optimistic but besides somewhat skeptical. I’m hardly unsocial erstwhile I accidental that I loved the archetypal 1 – it was a uncommon illustration of a genuinely comic crippled and it happened to beryllium an fantabulous first-person shooter to boot. But making sequels to comedies is nary definite happening – conscionable look astatine the agelong database of large drama films that got atrocious follow-ups. How would a video crippled drama sequel fare?

If the hr of High connected Life 2 I played is immoderate indication, it’s got a large accidental to beryllium arsenic comic arsenic – and perchance adjacent much amusive connected the gameplay broadside than – the 2022 original. In that hr alone, I wandered astir a beauteous beachside alien town, met a semi-depressed caller weapon named Travis and got wholly wasted with him, impressed immoderate alien teenagers with my skateboarding skills, circumcised a elephantine alien phallus with a laser, stole the fedora from the 1996 movie Dunston Checks In, tried (unsuccessfully) to lick a execution mystery, and bounty-hunted a billionaire who, yes, met his demise. Did I laughter on the way? Yup. Is the first-person shooter combat improved from the original? Certainly. Did I admit the assortment of gameplay wrong this tiny portion of the campaign? Most decidedly yes. Like I said, I went successful optimistic, but erstwhile my demo ended I was much excited than ever for High connected Life 2’s February 13, 2026 release.

Skate oregon Die

I began successful Pinkline Harbor, a formation municipality with a bar, a skate shop, a barroom and grill overlooking the sea, and more. It didn’t instrumentality agelong for maine to find trouble, arsenic a brace of chap bounty hunters accosted maine and yet recognized maine arsenic a people with a large bounty connected my ain head. After taking them out, the bottleneck was wide and I was escaped to research the harbor.

This gave maine my archetypal sensation of High connected Life 2’s caller traversal mechanic: skateboarding. I’ve played a batch of first-person shooters successful my day, but I’m not definite I’ve ever played an FPS with skateboarding successful it until now. And I person to say, I emotion however developer Squanch Games has implemented it here. It’s fundamentally your tally function. When you property the sprint button, your outlaw leader deploys their committee and starts riding. You tin grind connected rails to truly get astir the unfastened playspaces faster, and you’ve got momentum similar an existent skateboard does, too, allowing you to drawback aerial if you’re skating in, say, an bare excavation connected a cruise ship. I’m truly funny to spot however the skateboarding gets utilized passim the campaign; I already saw it incorporated into a basal puzzle successful my demo.

After solving that elemental 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 happens to beryllium a gun) who’s getting drunk astatine the barroom aft a combat with his wife. It’s present we spot a invited tweak to the archetypal High connected Life: you present person dialog choices for each of your weapon characters; if you take 1 that’s from a antithetic weapon than what you’re holding, you’ll enactment that weapon distant and instrumentality retired the 1 whose effect you’ve chosen. This allows for plentifulness of comic options, and portion I wouldn’t accidental this unsocial encourages replayability, if you bash hap to tally done High connected Life 2 much than once, astatine slightest you tin guarantee that you won’t perceive each of the nonstop aforesaid dialogue.

Hold Your Liquor

You’ve got to support Travis blessed arsenic you unreal to beryllium his drinking buddy, arsenic he’s got a spare summons for the cruise vessel you request to get aboard, since that’s wherever your people – the billionaire Larry Pinkstock – is believed to be. And truthful there’s a literal Happy-O-Meter that you’ll capable by dancing successful a DDR-like minigame, playing darts portion hammered, and drafting a representation of Travis. Naturally, this leads to a barroom combat and you vomiting and blacking retired and waking up connected the beach. Did my actions during immoderate portion of this gameplay series look to truly matter? Not really. But did I laughter passim it? Absolutely.

Naturally, getting aboard the vessel isn’t arsenic casual arsenic simply walking onto it; you’ll request to combat your mode done immoderate much bounty-hunting atrocious guys. This conflict gives you a bully consciousness of however traversal – from the skateboard to utilizing Knifey arsenic a grappling hook – is organically woven into combat. If you support moving you’ll beryllium pugnacious to bring down, peculiarly erstwhile you premix successful predominant usage of each gun’s peculiar attack; they’re each connected a cooldown, truthful you can’t spam them. Combat decidedly feels much layered successful this sequel than it did successful the archetypal game. In different words, you’ve got much options astatine your disposal successful immoderate fixed encounter, and that’s a bully thing.

Once aboard the ship, called the Pinkline Panacea, you’ll request to springiness up your guns astatine the information checkpoint earlier enjoying the perks of your VIP summons – which includes the item of the evening, a execution enigma party. Thus, getting dressed up for the large lawsuit is simply a must, truthful Travis buys you some wild, matching Austin Powers-looking purple suits from a vendor who looks suspiciously similar an alien mentation of John Waters.

Laser That Wiener

Anyway, I needed to get my friends – aka my guns – back, and truthful Travis and I wandered into Pinkstock’s depository to hunt for them. We didn’t find them, but we did find the fedora worn by Dunston the orangutan successful Dunston Checks In, which Travis instantly became obsessed with. So, however to get it for him without alerting security? Well, arsenic luck would person it, the adjacent depository portion is simply a elephantine alien phallus, acceptable up for depository patrons to circumcise utilizing the circumcision laser. I won’t spoil the puzzle solution, but let’s conscionable accidental that yes, I did get Travis that fedora. And acquiring it was a precise comic process.

More exploration of the vessel led america to the Lido Deck, wherever a pack of unruly teens had managed to get their hands connected Knifey. And successful a wide humorous motion to Tony Hawk, the teens agreed to instrumentality Knifey – if I showed disconnected my skateboarding skills by collecting the letters scattered astir the deck…that happened to spell retired the connection “gonads.” L-O-L. And arsenic you tin already see, High connected Life 2 is chock afloat of variety, and I haven’t adjacent told you astir the champion portion of my demo yet…

Whodunnit?

After battling immoderate much bounty hunters connected the Lido Deck who were looking to currency successful connected the terms connected my head, I made my mode backmost to my compartment and passed retired earlier the party. Once we got to the VIP execution enigma bash, I recovered 4 unusual chap guests, and soon our mysterious big appeared.

I expected a very light spot of clue-gathering successful this sequence, and if that’s each it had been, High connected Life 2 inactive would’ve earned points successful my publication for continuing to premix up the gameplay. However, developer Squanch Games had different ideas. The execution enigma is nary joke, some tonally and difficulty-wise. The squad intelligibly took this conception precise seriously, and arsenic specified you’ll request to speech to each 4 suspects repeatedly, scour the country for some evident and hidden clues, marque notes successful your on-screen notepad, and yet not conscionable impeach 1 of the four, but person collected capable grounds and made capable connections to found a motive and credibly pin the transgression connected 1 of them. I’m purposely not going to accidental immoderate much astir this due to the fact that I don’t privation to spoil immoderate of it for you, but I’ll admit that portion I did extremity up accusing the close person, I hadn’t solidly established a motive, and thus, I failed to lick the execution mystery. I can’t hold to play this again successful the last mentation of the crippled successful bid to instrumentality different ace astatine it.

Who’s the Boss?

I escaped the execution enigma via a h2o descent that took maine to the little deck. This led to different large conflict wherever I got to trial retired different caller limb successful High connected Life 2: the Flint Turtles. They’re temporary-use pickups successful the applicable sense, and successful the literal sense, they’re adorable reptiles who hap to respire fire, making for convenient single-use flamethrowers. One miniboss combat and a fewer much rounds of regular combat aboriginal and I yet recovered myself astatine the extremity of my demo successful a due brag combat against Kreg, the person of the bounty huntsman pack that had been harassing maine passim my demo.

Kreg proved to beryllium a beauteous accepted first-person shooter brag foe. He had onslaught patterns to larn and anemic moments wherever I could truly fto him person it. I wouldn’t accidental this combat was amended than the fantabulous brag battles successful the archetypal High connected Life, but it was an engaging capable encounter.

All told, I was pleasantly amazed by my hr with High connected Life 2. Not amazed that it was good, to beryllium wide – I expected that – but alternatively delighted by conscionable however nicely the gameplay has evolved from the archetypal game, and however overmuch smart, funny, and unexpected assortment determination was passim the gameplay. I wasn’t simply shooting the full time. Far from it! If the full of High connected Life 2 matches what my one-hour portion brought to the table, past it’s going to beryllium a precise invited summation to Xbox – including Game Pass connected time 1 – PC, and PS5.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's enforcement exertion of previews and big of some IGN's play Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, arsenic good arsenic our monthly(-ish) interrogation show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, truthful it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him connected Twitter astatine @DMC_Ryan.