High on Life 2 review – Pharma’s market

The original High on Life is something of a rarity in video games: a genuinely funny jaunt across the cosmos that didn’t need to rely on dated memes to pull a chuckle out of its audience as chatterbox guns filled any awkward silence with their color commentary. A few years later, and High on Life 2 is telling the same joke, albeit without Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland attached to the project. High on Life 2 feels immediately different without him onboard, as the dialogue feels calmer and not as focused on cruelty. It’s still an irreverent shooter that isn’t afraid to shed some alien blood and perform over-the-top murders for a good cause.

Picking up several years after aliens attempted to turn the entire human race into the ultimate drug, High on Life 2 flips the script with its cast of misfits. In place of an evil drug cartel, you’re facing off against the biggest alien pharmaceutical company in the cosmos, and its plans to market humans as a gateway drug. And instead of finding your feet as a bounty hunter, you’re now an established assassin taking on jobs alongside your arsenal of talkative weapons.

High on Life 2 doesn’t make the best impression with its opening act, as sloppy gunplay, far too many monologues, and multiple performance issues threaten to send the entire adventure off the rails. Fortunately, things start to pick up in the second half of this short game – expect to dump around 10 hours into completing its campaign – and the absurdist humor still shines during segments where you’re wielding foul-mouthed guns and a psychopathic knife against Big Alien Pharma.

The laugh-out-loud moments in High on Life 2 come frequently and fast, with veteran actor Richard Kind voicing one of the most annoying bosses of all time to perfection. Squanch Games deserves credit for trying out new material to help liven things up. Sure, not every joke is a winner (tough crowd!) and the humor sticks to its lowbrow roots, but High on Life 2 is firmly committed to the bit.

Finding new sentient space-guns is also a treat, and each one offers unique abilities for both combat and puzzle-solving. John Woo fans can exercise their dual-wielding skills when you reunite Travis with his wife, the frog-like shotgun Gus has a voice like velvet thanks to JB Smoove returning to voice it, and Sheath mixes burst-fire with harpoons that can create grisly ziplines. Outside of the guns and trick shots, High on Life 2 also introduces a skateboard to help you get around levels quickly.

This gives each firefight a Tony Hawk’s Pro Slayer feel, as you’re encouraged to keep moving, use the environment to your advantage, and perform some sick tricks while installing fresh holes in the heads of your enemies. A good idea on paper, but in practise, this can lead to fights getting too chaotic as you’re expected to play two different games at the same time, essentially. Finding that organic middleground between these ideas is easier said than done and can be a death sentence when the action is turned up to 11, and you can barely parse what you’re seeing on the screen.

Said chaotic action also has a tremendous impact on the game’s performance, with massive dips in the framerate and game-killing bugs popping up frequently. Developer Squanch Games has been working on patches to smooth out these issues, but at the time of writing this review, they’re still rampant, and the studio is going to need multiple silver bullets to address these problems.

High on Life 2 released for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X|S on 13 February 2026. It’s coming to Nintendo Switch 2 on 20 April.