TL;DR: High On Life 2 improves movement and story urgency, keeps the jokes flying, and stumbles on bosses and bugs. Still a highly entertaining comedy FPS in 2026.

Booting up High On Life 2 in 2026 feels a little like sneaking junk food into a film festival. In a year packed with brooding prestige titles and cinematic shooters that want to process your feelings about loss, trauma, and morally gray father figures, here I am holding a controller while a talking alien gun roasts me mid-firefight. And somehow, that chaotic energy still works. High On Life 2 isn’t trying to win awards for subtle storytelling. It’s trying to make me laugh while I grind across alien railings and blast bounty hunters in the face, and most of the time, it succeeds.

This High On Life 2 review is coming from someone who genuinely missed comedy games. The industry used to pump them out in the late ’90s and early 2000s like it was no big deal. Now they feel endangered. So when Squanch Games decided to double down on its weird, meta, sci-fi FPS formula, I was ready to see whether this sequel could justify its existence. The good news is that it absolutely has a reason to be here. The slightly less good news is that it’s still a little rough around the edges.

The story in High On Life 2 kicks off five years after the original game. I’m no longer just some random slacker dragged into a galactic mess; I’m a full-blown celebrity bounty hunter who saved humanity. There’s an absurd confidence to the way the sequel frames that status. I’m heading to public events like I’ve got a space PR team when the plot detonates in my lap: my sister Lizzie is suddenly one of the top bounties in the galaxy. That revelation sets off a conspiracy that escalates quickly, and I appreciated the urgency. The original High On Life took its time unspooling its premise, but this sequel shoves me straight into the thick of it. The pacing feels sharper and more focused, and it helps the High On Life 2 story stand apart rather than feeling like a retread.

Of course, the defining trait of High On Life 2 is still its irreverent, meta comedy. The guns talk constantly. The world winks at me. Real-life references and in-universe media gags are scattered everywhere. At one point I found myself lingering just to watch one of the in-game B-movies play out, which feels like the most on-brand distraction imaginable. What I appreciate is that the jokes usually don’t overstay their welcome. If a bit doesn’t land, the game moves on quickly enough that I’m not trapped in it. Some of the gun banter leans a little too hard into self-awareness, and there were moments when I felt the humor straining for a reaction. But then it pivots into something genuinely clever or bizarre, and I’m laughing again. It’s messy, but it’s lively.

Where High On Life 2 really surprised me is in its gameplay evolution. The headline addition is the skateboard, and I can’t overstate how much this single mechanic changes the feel of the entire game. You get it early, and suddenly traversal becomes a kinetic playground. Grinding on rails while shooting enemies transforms standard firefights into something far more dynamic. It feels like someone fused a first-person shooter with a first-person Tony Hawk experiment and just decided to see what would happen. The result is more vertical arenas, more movement options, and a flow that encourages me to stay in motion rather than hunkering down behind cover.

The returning grapple mechanic layers beautifully with the skateboard. Swinging across gaps and chaining movement abilities together made me explore more than I normally would in a comedy-driven shooter. The world design benefits from that mobility. Encounters feel built around movement rather than just waves of enemies running at me. Even the standard fights have more texture this time, especially with enemies that split apart after death and create secondary threats. It’s a subtle twist, but it keeps me engaged instead of coasting.

The bosses, unfortunately, are where High On Life 2 stumbles again. They still have that bullet sponge feel that drags out encounters longer than they need to. Most bosses telegraph their limited move sets quickly, and once I figured out the pattern, it was just a matter of repetition. A few phase transitions felt awkward, and I ran into noticeable hitbox quirks that undercut the spectacle. In a game this loud and flamboyant, boss fights should be the high points. Instead, they feel serviceable at best.

Then there are the technical hiccups. Playing High On Life 2 on PC, I encountered multiple instances where I had to reload checkpoints because something simply didn’t trigger. An enemy wave wouldn’t spawn. A puzzle wouldn’t advance. A door would just sit there like it forgot its job. The auto-save system is generous, so I rarely lost meaningful progress, but it’s still disruptive. What makes it especially tricky in a game like this is that the humor muddies the waters. When everything is absurd and self-aware, it’s not always obvious whether the game is intentionally messing with me or genuinely broken. I definitely wasted time assuming a glitch was part of a joke. On top of that, I experienced a couple of crashes tied to a power-up. They weren’t constant, but they were enough to remind me that this sequel hasn’t fully sanded down the rough edges of the original.

Despite those issues, I found myself genuinely happy that High On Life 2 exists. It feels like a stubborn, slightly chaotic counterpoint to the rest of the industry. It doesn’t chase prestige. It doesn’t pretend to be emotionally profound. It just wants to be a funny, weird sci-fi shooter with inventive movement and an unapologetic voice. That confidence goes a long way. If Squanch Games can tighten up boss design and fully squash the technical problems in a future entry, this series could evolve from cult favorite to something even stronger.

As it stands, High On Life 2 is a conditional recommendation. If you hate meta humor or have zero patience for occasional bugs, this won’t convert you. But if you’re looking for a comedy FPS sequel that actually experiments with movement and delivers consistent entertainment, it’s still one of the more distinctive shooters you can play right now.

Verdict

High On Life 2 refines the formula with smarter pacing and a brilliant skateboard mechanic that transforms combat, even if technical issues and underwhelming bosses hold it back. It’s chaotic, funny, and imperfect, but I’m genuinely glad it’s here.