The text below was published on the official Xbox website.
How do you follow one of the funniest first-person shooters ever created? Turns out: give us a skateboard and tell us to go nuts. During a recent hands-on with an early build of High On Life 2, I immediately recognized many returning staples from the original—from the talking firearms, the Gatlians, to Knifey’s grappling gauntlet for ledge-pulling and tons of sharply written dialogue fleshing out this wild universe. But the skateboard truly stole the show.
Set sometime after High On Life wrapped, this hands-on demo kicked off with me parachuting onto ConCon Planet (Convention Convention), a world full of floating platforms hosting (you guessed it) conventions. A bounty led us here targeting Senator Muppy Doo, a politician allied with the villainous Rhea Pharmaceuticals executives planning to turn humanity into… prescription pills.
My mission? Navigate multiple conventions to find him. The first stop is ParkingCon—a cluttered stack of wrecked cars where aliens brawl over scarce parking spots (one “reserved” by a plastic chair). We needed to clear space so Gene could park “by any means necessary” (translation: shoot it out). Initially, I approached it like a standard FPS: handling enemy groups one at a time while switching between my two Gatlians—Sweezy (laser pistol) and Gus (shotgun)—to purge parking spots. Then I hopped on the skateboard, and everything changed.
High On Life Pro Skater Edition
The skateboard effectively replaces sprinting, but its speed and agility make it game-changing. The more I moved through the level on wheels, the more objects I found to grind using LB—rails, concrete barriers, even quarter pipe-like ramps and cars positioned just right for jumps. That’s when it clicked: this entire level is a skatepark! Absolutely brilliant.
Combat accelerated as I grew comfortable spotting grind spots while shredding enemies with Sweezy and Gus. Tossing my skateboard for one-hit kills felt visceral. Fusing grinding with Knifey’s grappling pull on LB proved genius—it’d latch onto rails when gaps threatened. This synergy creates real flow, something unexpected for the genre.
Remember Knifey’s traversal gauntlet from the first game? That platforming puzzle element returns but amplifies dramatically with skating. New possibilities emerged fast as demo highlights unfolded.
Progressing involved grinding floating buses, bouncing off giant balloons, and wall-running across a cloud-chasm to PoliCon (a political convention). Skatepark energy suffused this section too—rails aplenty allowed rapid grinds en route to my objective. Enter Suit-O, your persistent PA.
What Else Can You Do?
Suit-O constantly popped up during our 30-minute session to “keep things on schedule”—skipping ahead and “accidentally” catapulting us into a new boss fight against Sheath (Ralph Ineson voicing). What ensued was a hilariously gory dissection of this alien bounty hunter, whose head promptly transforms into a new Gatlian. Yes, even celebrity-voiced bosses become guns.
Sheath complements Sweezy/Gus perfectly with a battle-rifle feel (Halo fans will recognize that kick). His alt-fire deploys an Impaling Spike—which chains targets into Spike Ziplines later used to traverse platforms. Next stop? MurderCon (exactly what it sounds like). Metroidvania elements return, letting you revisit areas with new abilities.
Shoot, Shoot, Shoot!
Past MurderCon’s gates, the demo spotlighted Knifey—who, as returnees know, loves carnage. He was predictably thrilled at this bloodsport-themed event. Suddenly, we were neck-deep in a laser-tag-style battle royale arena drenched in neon with swarms of enemies. Pure FPS chaos took center stage here.
Sheath’s punchy rifle feel ruled—Impaling Spike chains turned crowd control into vandalism. Sweezy’s slowing bubble alt-fire trapped opponents while Gus’ shotgun and disc-projectile barraged cleared rooms. This all peaked in a helmeted pyramid-headed ogre battle against Brutus. We tore through him swiftly—crowned MurderCon champions.
Suit-O then teleported us to confront Muppy Doo. It started conventionally: dodging attacks while Gatlians did damage. Then the fight escalated… into something radically fresh—all unfolding on the menu screen.
See, Muppy shrinks himself microscopically, hijacking Suit-O inside my suit’s mainframe. Freeing Suit-O transformed him into my mouse cursor. I frantically clicked across menu screens to stop Muppy trashing subsystems as he popped from UI elements.
When Sudo went rogue, it forced a full hard reboot… booting into Bible Adventures (seriously). The insanity climaxed with Knifey stabbing me to death—his glad-chore. Thus concluded our High On Life 2 session.
Two games in, Squanch Games has cemented its “wouldn’t it be funny if…” design ethos—making wild premises wildly playable and funny. Nailing that balance is skateboarding while headshotting aliens—deceptively hard. We’re hyped to see the full chaos when High On Life 2 launches February 13, 2026 on PS5, PC and Xbox Series X|S, Day One on Game Pass Ultimate.
