High On Life (2022 Video Game)

About

High On Life is an upcoming first-person shooter video game conceived by Justin Roiland to be published by Squanch Games. Previews of the game showed off its unique mechanic of talking weapons, a gun and a knife, which comment on the player's actions and the in-game scenarios in a quippy, irreverent style, which many found reminiscent of Roiland's show Rick and Morty. They also found the voices for the weapons similar to Roiland's voices for Rick Sanchez and Morty Smith. Once previews started spreading online, users were divided on if the dialogue and voice acting was funny or cringeworthy.

History

High on Life, developed by Squanch Games, debuted on June 12th, 2022 at the Xbox and Bethesda games showcase. In the game, players take control of a bounty hunter set on fighting off alien invaders who get intoxicated on human life. The game initially had an October 2022 release date but was later delayed to December 2022.^[1]

Online Reaction

While opinions on the game were generally high following its June debut, an August 23rd gameplay trailer showcasing the game's talking guns (shown below) began dramatically polarizing players' excitement.

Many players were put off by the ceaseless chatter of the player's gun in the trailer. Twitter user @DestinLegarie^[2] tweeted the trailer "killed" his excitement for the game, gaining over 320 likes in three days (shown below, left). User @voidburger^[3] tweeted that the trailer had "an insane amount of never shutting the hell up," gaining over 80 likes in the same time period (shown below, right). In an op-ed, Kotaku^[4] called the gun "the epitome of cringe."

A second clip posted by IGN^[5] drew similar reactions, as the gun quips its way through the player attempting to shoot a child (shown below).

User @9_volt^[6] wrote, "we have managed to make a game even more annoying than borderlands," gaining over 1,800 retweets and 27,000 likes (shown below, left). User @AlphaOmegaSin^[7] criticized the joke, considering it "scraps" from Roiland's other show, Solar Opposites (shown below, right).

Following backlash, developers promised Gamesradar^[8] that the guns wouldn't be "blabbing" the whole time and that they were listening to complaints and criticisms from players in an attempt to strike a balance between the game's sense of humor and going overboard.

Search Interest

External References