High on Life 2 is absolutely hilarious gaming with some awkward mic drops — and it's on Xbox Game Pass, too

High on Life was one of my surprise hits in 2022. Mixing fairly standard gameplay alongside some of the quirkiest humor this side of the galaxy, Squanch Games found a foothold in my game niche.

That’s why when I heard about the sequel, I immediately realized I wasn’t the only one with a twisted, dark sense of humor in the gaming space.

To get to a sequel, Squanch Games had gone through quite the journey, given all that happened with Justin Roiland. Their main voice actor was out, ostracized from the industry for very good reasons.

How do you build from a foundation that nearly collapsed? In their case, they just did it. What comes out on the other end is definitely better off without the influence of the aforementioned Justin. While it’s a mixed bag as it all comes together, its laughter is far better than its predecessor, and that’s saying quite a lot!

Loads of laughter

The main setup for High on Life 2 follows The Bounty Hunter once more, and again, he plays silently amongst the loud, hilarious obnoxiousness of the crowd.

Gone are many of your weapons, replaced by nothing but a couple of the originals (don’t worry, you get more guns later).

Through a couple of twists and turns, you find out that humanity is in trouble once more. You, the Bounty Hunter, find yourself standing between the human race and galactic turmoil. Stakes aside, this game is funny as f#$%.

I felt like the original High on Life grabbed a couple of laughs here and there, with some chuckles along the way. I don’t know if I changed or the game itself, but I was rolling at times.

I really do credit the fact that a certain actor was removed, since the focus grows far beyond the lines written and delivered by said actor.

The scenery itself is even funnier as well, with things like a Crane Game that beats away at every funny bone in my body. Well-timed, well-delivered jokes are the greatest reason to play this game, and at least this time, the gameplay isn’t quite as bad as it was before.

Fluid guns and fluid combat

You’ll find most of your previous Bounty Hunter abilities gone once the main game starts, but thanks to the addition of a skateboard, I kid you not, moment-to-moment gunplay is faster, more chaotic, and all the more pleasing to play.

Along the way, you’ll regain your old abilities alongside some new ones that, in turn, make everything even better.

If you’ve read some of my other reviews, you might be familiar with my “fun” metric. Basically, I call it like I see it. A game that’s fun should be celebrated and called out for being so.

When it comes to High on Life 2, it’s pure fun. Throughout the experience, regardless of some of the upcoming issues I’ll highlight, I was having a lot of fun playing it.

Sometimes games these days forget that and, rather, look to mark some metric off for open-world or the number of activities for players to find. Maybe they need to entice player playtime through elongated experience grinding.

Whatever it is, there are tons of games out there that put components in their games that aren’t fun and feel like a chore instead. High on Life 2 is one of the few instances where I didn’t feel that chore grind at any point.

Now, that doesn't mean this is peak gaming. When it comes down to it, High on Life 2 succeeds in being simple, but it's also nothing that will shake up the genre or feel truly fresh outside of the fact that your weapon talks during combat.

My only actual issue with this is pacing. For too long, it seems you’re relegated to two guns, which takes away a lot of the varietal whimsy the first game had. You’ll get your third weapon toward the end of your first bounty mission, which is a decent few hours into the game.

Performance

Here is where I’m going to be fairly critical of the game. I play a lot of my games these days on Windows PC, and when I looked at the recommended specs on Steam, I was astonished. The game recommends an RTX 4080 and an Intel Core i7-13700KF. Excuse me?

Keep in mind that my current rig is a 9800X3D, an RTX 5080, paired with 64GB of DDR5 RAM at 6000MHz (better timings). So, I am above the recommended specs, but not by much.

I took a spin with it on three platforms: my main rig, listed above; an RTX 4060 gaming laptop; and my Xbox Series X. The game on PC is a stutter fest at times, as though the game can’t figure out quite what to do given all that’s happening on screen and under the hood.

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These two screenshots perfectly incapsulate the difference between High and Low settings.

These two screenshots perfectly incapsulate the difference between High and Low settings.

On my 4060, I had to set my settings to 1080p, medium, DLSS balanced, and I had to turn 2x frame generation on to get anything like a steady 45 FPS. Only when I turned it to low did the game play somewhat without frame gen.

The difference between Very High settings and Low is pretty staggering as well. Which is where the console versions seem to be lined up to achieve their 60 frames per second target.

The game will hold that target until combat hits hard, where you can see (what appears to be) a drop of around 10 frames or more.

Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s Unreal Engine 5. That’s not an excuse anymore after Arc Raiders launched and looks as beautiful as it does.

Too often, it seems developers lean on Unreal Engine to create their works without putting in the optimization effort we’ve seen in years past.

Conclusion

✅You should play this if ...

• You want a ton of laughs
• You enjoy fluid gameplay that doesn't require mastery.

❌You should not play this if ...

• You're a stickler for performance, even if your PC is under the recommended settings.
• You're not a lover of crude humor.

Like I said previously, when it comes to fun, High on Life 2 hits the mark. However, it falls short when it comes to performance. As we enter an age where one would assume games should be far more optimized, they’re simply not.

Forget about the shortcomings of the console version when it comes to looks; a game like this should never launch in the state it’s in on PC.

Where I took a point away from Borderlands 4 for their performance issues, High on Life 2 manages to perform even worse, and Borderlands 4 is an open-world title.

With that said, if you’ve got a machine that can handle it, or it gets patched in the near future, High on Life 2 is one of the funniest games I’ve ever played.

I had so much fun when it came down to just playing and not having to worry about whether or not my computer was about to crash. Once this game runs the way it should run, it should be an automatic purchase for anyone who likes to smile.

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