High On Life 2

High On Life 2 is an absolute blast, and I dare you to find a funnier game to play this year.

72%Game Brain Score

humor, story

optimization, stability

66% User Score Based on 1,111 reviews

Critic Score 77%Based on 10 reviews

Platforms

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About

High On Life 2 is a single player shooter game with comedy and science fiction themes. It was developed by Squanch Games, Inc. and was released on February 13, 2026. It received mostly positive reviews from both critics and players.

An intergalactic conspiracy threatens the fate of humanity! Team up with a wide cast of talking alien guns as you shoot, stab, and skate your way through the exotic locales to take down the bad guys and save your favorite species (humans)!

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

Skip User Reviews

66%

Audience ScoreBased on 1,111 reviews

humor245 positive mentions

optimization102 negative mentions

Fun and chaotic gameplay with enhanced gunplay and the entertaining skateboard mechanic that adds fresh traversal and combat dynamics.
Humor and writing continue the absurd and irreverent style from the first game, with engaging characters and amusing dialogue.
Visually impressive art style with colorful, detailed environments and unique alien designs, creating an immersive and quirky world.

Performance and optimization issues are widespread, causing frequent crashes, frame drops, stuttering, and long shader loading times even on high-end PCs.
Numerous game-breaking bugs and glitches including softlocks, hardlocks, missing or bugged NPCs, and progression blockers hindering the gameplay experience.
Some players find the story shorter and less engaging than the original, and the humor is perceived as less impactful partly due to the absence of a key voice actor.

optimization
377 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
13%
60%
27%
The game's optimization is widely criticized, with many users reporting severe performance issues including frequent crashes, stuttering, and inconsistent frame rates even on high-end PCs. While some players with powerful hardware experience stable performance, the majority advise waiting for patches or optimizations before purchasing, as the current state significantly hampers the gameplay experience. Developers are expected to address these issues in future updates to fully realize the game's potential.
- “Despite the issues in performance I have had during my time playing High on Life 2, I found it to be a worthy sequel.”
- “I have a 4080 laptop GPU (performance similar to a 3070ti or a 4060) hooked up to a 3440x1440 monitor, and I’m getting consistent 60-75 FPS on high/ultra mixed settings.”
- “Performance has been solid for me—I'm playing at 4K with very high settings, DLSS performance, and frame generation, and usually achieve around 120 FPS.”
- “I really wanted to play this game having enjoyed the first one but it's literally unplayable, lag spikes, poor performance, bugs and crashes, big disappointment!”
- “Had about 3 crashes during my playthrough and plenty of stuttering generally when areas are loading themselves so the game as of now is not optimized well and I will strongly advise anyone looking to buy this game to hold out for more patches for these problems to be ironed out.”
- “It's probably one of the worst optimized PC games I've ever played, running at 60 fps on my 7900 XTX, which as of writing is AMD's most powerful consumer raster GPU, 24GB of VRAM, and 64GB of RAM on a Ryzen 9 CPU.”
humor
246 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The humor in this game largely continues the quirky, absurd, and edgy style of the first installment, delivering many laughs through character banter, wacky dialogue, and humorous world interactions. However, some players find it less consistently funny or lacking the original's unique charm and iconic characters, with occasional jokes feeling forced or flat. Despite performance and bug issues that hamper the experience for some, the humor remains a strong, entertaining feature for fans of this style.
- “The humor is sharper, funnier, and more consistent throughout the entire experience.”
- “The humor is dialed up even more compared to the first game; it’s sharper, more absurd, and lands more consistently.”
- “The humor is unhinged in the best way, the gunplay feels great, and the world design keeps throwing curveballs.”
story
221 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
63%
4%
The story in this sequel to High on Life generally continues the humor and themes of the first game, featuring fun characters, quirky dialogue, and creative missions, but many players find it somewhat repetitive and less engaging, lacking complexity or depth. While some enjoy the enjoyable plot and improvements in storytelling and mission design, others criticize it for feeling rushed, overly similar to the original, and occasionally weighed down by pacing issues. However, numerous game-breaking bugs and crashes often hinder story progression, significantly impacting the overall experience.
- “I enjoy the story, the boss fight, the skate mechanics, the characters and the plot twist!”
- “The story beats are better than the first and the world feels really built out.”
- “A top tier game in my honest opinion, I played the first High on Life only because my brother bought it for me but instantly fell in love with its charm; all the characters are charming and likeable and same can most definitely be said about all the bosses. The story was so fun to follow and the new Gatliens were such a nice addition. I have seen a lot of negativity about this game but honestly it's okay to be wrong because this game does not deserve any hate it gets. The first game already had great mechanics but this second one introduced so much, it was so sweet, especially the skateboarding—I did not think I'd like it but I loved it. You should definitely play it; it's worth the money in my honest opinion and I really hope we could get a High on Life 3!”
- “There are key parts of the game that have massive bugs that soft-lock or crash at practically every story beat for one reason or another.”
- “Half of the missions that you play through will be in a completely different style than the high on life style (an entire 4 hour mission is in a "lowpoly" style, many of the boss fights aren't actually "fights"), the game seems to think annoying = funny, and overall the pacing of the story is off, the missions are all over the place and honestly feel like a compilation of scrapped HOL1 ideas.”
- “Its a ok game however there are several instances in the game specifically in the concon mission where if you accidentally progress too far you cannot go back and you are hard locked into an area where you cannot progress and you need to completely start a new game to get the opportunity to actually progress that is in hoping you don't unintentionally skip a part again and have to restart your entire game again its incredibly frustrating and downright stupid and genuinely unplayable in the current state unless this issue is patched post haste.”
gameplay
160 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
49%
47%
4%
The gameplay of High on Life 2 is widely praised for its fun, fast-paced combat and the innovative addition of the skateboard mechanic, which enhances movement and combat dynamics. Many reviewers find it smoother and more polished than the first game, with improved gunplay and engaging mechanics. However, the experience is frequently marred by technical issues such as bugs, crashes, and poor optimization that disrupt the flow for some players.
- “Okay, take the first game and spit shine it, then hydraulic press it into a pancake and then use that pancake as a plate for this game because it stomps it out of the water with 47% more content overall. That's not even talking about the gameplay itself or the mechanics like the movement is so fresh and it feels so good to fight and just in general run around the maps. Best game I've played this year hands down and I will be coming back to this one many times this year for sure because of just how fun it is. In my eyes this right here is perfection as a video game.”
- “The gameplay and story itself is that of the first, and it's enjoyable when the game isn't a buggy mess. The gameplay is by far the best aspect of the game especially with the new guns and skateboard mechanics, and the story is a powerful piece of commentary on the corruption within the pharmaceutical industry and the legal system.”
- “The skateboarding mechanics alone make it so worth it. The game also delivers on the gameplay front and the skateboarding aspect works really well in providing you with a fun, fast-paced way to traverse the game world. Gameplay is fun, and the skating traversal is a great addition that makes combat and moving around enjoyable and more fast-paced.”
- “The skate board mechanic is more a pain in the ass than does good.”
- “Hopefully it ends up being fixed, but completely unenjoyable at this point after numerous crashes and stuttering gameplay.”
- “It’s filled with so many bugs that it makes it impossible to have a consistent flow of gameplay without having to restart sections.”
graphics
135 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
24%
72%
4%
The graphics in High on Life 2 are a noticeable improvement over its predecessor with a more polished, varied, and visually appealing art style leveraging Unreal Engine 5. However, the game suffers from significant optimization issues, including frequent frame drops, stuttering, crashes, and graphical glitches that persist even on high-end hardware, often requiring players to lower settings or tweak configurations to achieve playable performance. While the visuals and art direction are generally praised, technical instability and poor optimization currently hinder the overall graphical experience.
- “Graphics and art design are good, with a variety of environments and nice visuals throughout the game.”
- “The art style pops, the lighting is clean, and the worlds feel more alive than in the first game.”
- “Like I mentioned previously, the graphics in this game are jaw-dropping and despite it being a UE5 game, it performs way better than I thought it would.”
- “The graphics were decent but horribly optimized.”
- “It crashes all the time, the graphics constantly bug out with some models just becoming transparent or causing absurd screen tearing for seemingly no reason (the most recent I found actually made the game unplayable and is the reason for this), and if anything interrupts any audio, the game just soft-locks.”
- “Judging on the first game, I don't like giving this sequel a negative review, but, seriously, UE5 mixed with the style of how things are modeled, characters, etc. Pushing high end graphics is not necessary, especially given the price of computer components. Nobody can upgrade their computer to run this. I'm sat with my Ryzen 5 5600x, Radeon 7600, 24GB RAM, trying to run the game at minimum graphics, 720p, 30fps, I'm going all the way down here, and it still won't last 4 minutes, even using Radeon Chill, which has pulled me out of crashes in several other top end games. Meanwhile, the first game ran for 8 hours straight without issue at full medium graphics except textures high, 1080p native 60fps.”
stability
118 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
9%
91%
The game is plagued by numerous bugs, glitches, and frequent crashes that often lead to soft locks, seriously impacting playability and progression. Performance issues such as frame drops and poor optimization are common even on high-end PCs, making the experience frustrating for many players. While the game has potential and enjoyable elements, the current stability problems strongly suggest waiting for patches before playing.
- “Game runs great on Arch Linux and Legion Go's SteamOS edition.”
- “Runs great on my 9070 XT on Windows and CachyOS (Proton hotfix).”
- “Looks good, and runs great even at maxed settings.”
- “Game is really buggy; they should have fixed it before uploading the game.”
- “After finishing the game (took me 4 days due to glitches and crashes), I give this game 1 star.”
- “Good game, but wait for patches. It's very buggy, with lots of game-breaking bugs that soft lock your game with no way to load previous saves, requiring you to start over if you encounter any.”
music
15 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
20%
60%
20%
The music in the game receives mixed feedback, with many praising its chill vaporwave and thematic variety, including retro and sci-fi elements that enhance the atmosphere and boss fights. However, some find it occasionally grating or bland, indicating personal taste plays a significant role in its reception. Overall, the soundtrack is regarded as a strong point that builds on the original game's sound design.
- “The music and sound design are great too.”
- “The soundtrack supports the sci-fi atmosphere well, especially during boss fights and exploration segments.”
- “Everything I liked about the first game is here: colourful visuals, great humour, voice acting and a chill vaporwave soundtrack (plus the combat music is much less grating than in the first game).”
- “Zero music (it's the worst part, will seriously hurt you in the long run, brain damage).”
- “Music is occasionally grating but not enough to turn it down or off.”
- “Music is bland.”
emotional
8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game offers a fun and quirky emotional experience that is more entertaining than deeply moving, blending humor and heart in a lighthearted way. While some moments can feel uncomfortable or annoying, overall it succeeds in creating a weirdly wholesome and engaging atmosphere.
- “Just bring tissues for your emotional support gun.”
- “It's fun and weirdly wholesome at times.”
- “It celebrates slime, satire, spectacle, and stupidity - and somehow binds it all together into something weirdly heartfelt.”
replayability
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
Replayability is generally appreciated, with enjoyable content and hidden collectibles adding to its value, though some issues with game playability and empty areas currently limit the experience for some players. Many express intent to revisit the game once improvements are made.
- “Very fun and enjoyable with a good amount of replay value.”
- “I really liked how hidden many lux boxes were in the first game and hope that is available in this one as it does add a lot of replayability, despite being pretty intense to grind; especially for achievements.”
- “I'm refunding, and I totally intend on buying it again in a few months once they make the game more playable.”
- “There are entire playable areas without a single NPC to interact with.”
atmosphere
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
75%
25%
The atmosphere is praised for its strong sci-fi vibe enhanced by a fitting soundtrack, engaging story, and humor, creating a fun and immersive world that balances exploration with a relaxed, enjoyable tone. Fans of the first game will find the world and music especially satisfying.
- “The soundtrack supports the sci-fi atmosphere well, especially during boss fights and exploration segments.”
- “The humor, atmosphere, and overall vibe make it perfect for chilling rather than taking things too seriously.”
- “The atmosphere, the world, and the music is everything you'd want as someone who enjoyed the first game.”
grinding
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Grinding mechanics capture the classic Tony Hawk experience with rail tricks, but some users report a buggy mouse movement when accelerating during grinds. The overall content feels light, with much of the gameplay revolving around basic grinding and skateboarding.
- “Mouse movement bugged when I first got the skateboard; the issue occurred when I was grinding on a rail and pressed the button to skate faster.”
- “I watched videos of the devs talking about how it was inspired by the Tony Hawk games, and that’s exactly what it is: the 30 minutes I spent on the game was riding around on a skateboard, grinding rails.”
- “Did some side quests while not grinding to 100% completion of what is known; it feels very light in content.”
monetization
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users criticize the game's monetization as an aggressive cash grab that may deter potential buyers. Additionally, some technical issues related to controls are mentioned, though not directly tied to monetization.
- “Extreme cash grab and sadly if it stops others from wasting their money until the devs get their head out of their ass hope this review helps.”