High on Life feels like a game made by someone whose only goal in life is to be offensive
Singleplayer.
Many M-rated titles have a fair bit of profanity. While it doesn’t normally bother me, High on Life takes this to the extreme by having roughly 25% of spoken dialogue being profanity, including a scene where two characters say the F word around 100 times in 1 minute.
I have never played a game where the F word was used so frequently at the expense of flowing dialogue, with some characters using it up to 3 times per sentence.
High on Life looks like a game made for children. Honestly, I wish it was a game made for children, as the stunning visuals and adorable-looking characters would make for a fun and magical game and help keep children away from titles such as Call of Duty, which are far too mature for them.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. High on Life is ironically more offensive than even titles such as Doom and Call of Duty, which share a similar rating, albeit with a much more realistic and darker aesthetic.
High on Life’s combat feels unrewarding until almost the very end of the game, and for the most part, encounters felt more like chores than challenges.
While boss battles were decent and provided some challenge, every weapon felt awful to use. It won’t stop talking, which becomes even more annoying with Kenny’s frequent unfunny references to ejaculation and bodily fluids.
Ironically the weapon that was the most fun to use (Lezduit) is not given to the player until the final level of the game, and it is only fun due to Lezduit’s limited vocabulary and unbalanced power, which can lay waste to dozens of enemies without breaking a sweat.
High on Life is one of the edgiest games I have ever played, and it somehow managed to be even more tasteless than Shadow Warriors 3 while doing so.
I am not a prude and have no problem with Pegi 18/M-rated titles; however, when a game has nothing of substance to offer but offensive jokes and shock value, I struggle to find a reason for its existence.
From near-constant innuendo and harsh profanity to characters killing and eating human infants.
High on Life sets out to be offensive and is wonderfully successful at it, having managed to offend someone (me) who is not easily offended by dark humour when used correctly.
High on Life is excellently gory at times and often needless so, such as when two real-world actors are turned into puddles of blood by a villain towards the end of the game’s final level.
In another scene, a teddy bear-like creature begs for you to kill him as his intestines and gore spill from the shredded remains of his upper torso.
High on Life is genuinely funny in a few places; references to shoddy and repetitive game design and the occasional pop culture reference help break up the narrative; however, like everything else about High on Life, Squanch Games does not know when to quit. The amount of jokes and references soon becomes overwhelming, and what was originally amusing quickly becomes infuriating. By the end of my playthrough, I wanted it over and done with.
High on Life has a huge amount of LGBTIA representation; however, I can’t help but feel this representation is insincere, with almost every enemy officer being portrayed as a stereotypical “predatory gay” and sex offender, including subtle (and not-so-subtle) references to date rape, outing rivals, and revenge/non-consensual pornography.
While some may praise High on Life for its large cast of LGBTIA characters, I cannot help but feel most were included not to represent the LGBTIA community but rather to make jokes at its expense.
Due to Justin Rolland (co-creator/voice of Kenny) leaving Squanch games and being fired from his role in Rick and Morty due to a series of scandals and allegations, a sequel to High on Life is certainly delayed, if not outright cancelled, with Squanch Games having lost its co-creator and voice of main protagonist Kenny (in High on Life the player’s weapons talk while the player character does not), any possible future will certainly be much different than it would have been if not for Justins dramatic (and very public) fall from grace.
While I know many will be sorry to hear this, High on Life was the product of a twisted sense of humour and morality, and honestly, any changes that come about due to its co-creator leaving will be a good thing, in my opinion.
I will be the first to admit that High on Life is a visually stunning game, but visuals must come second to gameplay, and that is where High on Life falls flat on its face; all show and no substance, High on Life found popularity on Tiktok, (a platform which thrives on content which is all show and no substance), and as a result High on Life was the most popular Xbox Game Pass day one release in 2022.
In addition, High on Life was briefly the most-played Game Pass game on Xbox, topping the most-played charts for around seven days following its launch in December 2022.
High on Life: High on Knife is a shooter video game developed and published by Squanch Games, it was released on 3 October 2023 and retails for $59.99.
High on Life: High on Knife is available on the following platforms: PC, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
On average High on Life takes between 10 and 18 hours to complete.
Estimated completion times are derived from various sources and may vary based on the skill level of each player.
The following peripherals are officially supported:
High on Life is rated PEGI 18+ and contains:
High on Life could have been a brilliant game if the developers had spent more time making the game feel less repetitive and less time trying to find ways to be edgy; as a result, I cannot recommend High on Life to anyone, even those who have access to at no additional cost on Xbox/PC Game Pass.
