Abstract
- We go hands-on with the upcoming Excessive On Life 2 at gamesco 2025.
- Ralph Ineson joins the solid of Excessive On Life 2 alongside the returning actors Betsy Sodaro, J.B. Smoove, and Richard Form.
- Excessive On Life 2 launches for Xbox Sequence X|S on February 13, 2026, and will likely be accessible on day one with Sport Move Final.
How do you comply with one of the vital hilarious first-person shooters ever created? Seems: give us a skateboard and inform us to get nuts. Throughout a latest hands-on alternative with an early construct of Excessive On Life 2, I may immediately acknowledge many returning hallmarks from the unique, most notably the return of the speaking weaponry, Gatlians, but in addition the power to make use of Knifey’s grapple to drag me onto ledges, and tons of sharply written dialog that mix this wild universe collectively. But it surely was skateboarding that actually caught my consideration.
Selecting up a while after the tip of Excessive On Life, the hands-on preview kicked off with me skydiving into the world of ConCon (Conference Conference), which is a planet filled with floating platforms housing (you guessed it) conventions. A bounty has led us right here, focusing on senator Muppy Doo, a politician who’s in league with the evil executives at Rhea Prescription drugs who’re intent on turning humankind into… prescription drugs.
My mission? Make my means by way of a number of conventions to search out him. First up is ParkingCon, a group of crashed automobiles piled on high of one another with dozens of aliens preventing over the few remaining parking areas – one house was even being “held” by a plastic chair – and we have to free one as much as give returning character Gene’s flying Winnebago an opportunity to park by any means crucial (e.g. capturing aliens). At first, I got here to this with the method of an ordinary first-person shooter, specializing in enemy teams one by one, attempting to clear these parking areas, and biking between my two accessible Gatlians: Sweezy (laser pistol) and Gus (shotgun). Then I hopped on the skateboard and all the pieces modified.
Excessive On Life Professional Skater Version
The skateboard successfully replaces your dash button, nevertheless it’s the velocity and agility that comes with it that makes it such a sport changer. The extra I moved across the stage on the board, the extra objects I discovered to grind on by urgent the LB button, like handrails and concrete dividers. I even discovered some sections that resembled quarter pipes and seen that sure automobiles have been positioned simply proper to provide the impression they have been ramps to leap off. That’s when it dawned on me that this complete stage was mainly a skatepark! That is going to be nice.
The velocity of battle actually picked up the extra I grew to become snug discovering areas to grind, whereas reducing down enemies left and proper with Sweezy and Gus. I may even “throw” my skateboard at enemies for a one-hit kill and located it massively useful that the identical button tied to grinding was additionally Knifey’s head-latching capacity, which might neatly pull me to rails or grindable objects if I used to be going to be arising brief. It means you may get into an actual stream, even in a sport the place you wouldn’t anticipate it.
When you recall from the primary sport, traversal with Knifey’s grapple was a giant part, unlocking a wide range of environmental and platform puzzles. Now with the inclusion of the skateboard, the platforming points are all amplified and it wasn’t lengthy till the demo began showcasing what else I may do.
Persevering with to the following floating zone concerned grinding on floating buses, bouncing on large inflatable balloons, after which wall driving to securely cross a chasm of clouds, the place I reached PoliCon (a politics conference). The skatepark motif continued right here as properly, with loads of handrails and different objects to grind swiftly throughout this new zone, shifting by way of to my subsequent goal. And that’s when our private assistant Go well with-O stepped in.
So, What Else Can You Do?
For our demo, Go well with-O was ever vigilant in popping up on the backside of the display and ensuring we stayed on schedule for our 30-minute preview – deliberately fast-forwarding us by way of highlights of the demo, and “by accident” main us to the conclusion of a boss battle with one of many sport’s new characters, Sheath, voiced by the wonderful Ralph Ineson. What adopted was a hilarious (and bloody) dissection of his alien bounty hunter character – whose head is then reworked into a brand new Gatlian. Yep, a boss voiced by a well-known actor is additionally a gun on this sport.
Sheath complimented Sweezy and Gus properly with the texture of a battle rifle – Halo followers would possibly discover the acquainted “punch” right here — and his alt-attack is an Impaling Spike that can be utilized to string collectively subsequent targets and to create Spike ziplines, which I later use to cross over to the following conference, MurderCon (it’s precisely what you would possibly suppose it’s). I like that these Metroidvania-like parts are nonetheless current from the earlier sport, opening areas previously unreachable after you have acquired the precise instrument to do the job.
Shoot, Shoot, Shoot!
As soon as we’ve stepped by way of the gates into MurderCon, the demo’s narrative shifted barely to give attention to Knifey who, as returning gamers could recall, likes to get bloody. He was predictably overjoyed to attend a conference that’s all about considered one of his favourite topic issues. Earlier than I knew it, we have been neck deep in a battle royale, surrounded by a laser tag area aesthetic with a lot of neon strewn about. And, sure, tons of enemies to shoot at. The speedy traversal parts took a backseat right here, because the demo showcased extra of a standard multiplayer-like shooter format, permitting us to lean extra into our Gatlians and their skills.
Sheath feels nice with that excellent battle rifle punch, and utilizing his Impaling Spike to tie teams of enemies collectively was extremely enjoyable. Sweezy remains to be a stable laser pistol with an alt-attack that creates a slowdown bubble that surrounds a bunch of enemies. And Gus’ shotgun and disc shot skills are nice at clearing crowds of enemies. All this preventing culminated in a boss battle with a big, ogre-like character named Brutus, who had an enormous pyramid-like helmet fused to his head. It wasn’t lengthy after that me and my Gatlians made brief work of him and have been topped winners of MurderCon.
Lastly, I used to be whisked ahead as soon as once more by Go well with-O to face off with Muppy Doo. At first, the encounter was your customary fare of dodging incoming assaults and unleashing some damage with my Gatlians. But it surely was the following part of the battle that I wasn’t fairly prepared for – and was in contrast to something I’ve performed. The ultimate boss battle came about… within the menu display.
See, Muppy Doo has a shrinking capacity and was in a position to get so small that he snuck into my go well with’s mainframe and tied up Go well with-O. After releasing Go well with-O by “clicking” on him, he grew to become my mouse cursor as I clicked by way of my menu display, attempting to uncover the mini Muppy Doo who was trashing my sub methods.
Muppy would pop his head out from behind an icon, or begin destroying menu objects, and we’d punch him, forcing him to duck into one other sub-menu. After a little bit of this click-tag, it grew to become worse for my character, forcing a full system reboot and deleting my save sport… which rebooted into a wholly completely different sport – Bible Adventures. No, actually. Ultimately, issues continued to escalate to the purpose the place the one resolution was to have Knifey stab me to loss of life – which he was greater than prepared to oblige. And thus, we wrapped up our time with Excessive On Life 2.
A number of video games below their belt now, I like that Squanch Video games is admittedly beginning to settle right into a mindset of, “Wouldn’t it’s humorous if…” and discover methods to undergo with it, whereas making it unimaginable enjoyable (and extremely humorous) within the course of. Discovering that steadiness is just not a straightforward factor to do – form of like attempting to experience a skateboard whereas blasting aliens within the face. Of which we’re very excited to attempt extra of as soon as Excessive On Life 2 launches for Xbox Sequence X|S on February 13, 2026, accessible on day one with Sport Move Final.
Excessive On Life 2
Squanch Video games, Inc.
You’ve achieved it. You’ve taken down an intergalactic cartel, introduced humanity again from the brink of extinction, and hunted harmful bounties to the far corners of the galaxy. Bounty looking has introduced you fortune, fame and love; however when a mysterious determine out of your previous reappears and places a worth in your sister’s head, your comfortable life will get thrown into chaos.
Do you could have what it takes to threat all of it and produce down an intergalactic conspiracy that after once more threatens your favourite species (people)?
Excessive On Life RETURNS as you and the one you love rag-tag workforce of alien misfits shoot, stab, and skate your means by way of beautiful, harmful worlds all throughout the galaxy to explode the EVIL pharmaceutical conglomerate hell-bent on placing worth tags on HUMAN LIFE!
