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 Sort.Excessive On Life 2 launches for Xbox Sequence X|S on February 13, 2026, and will probably be out there on day one with Recreation Cross Final.
How do you comply with one of the crucial hilarious first-person shooters ever created? Seems: give us a skateboard and inform us to get nuts. Throughout a current hands-on alternative with an early construct of Excessive On Life 2, I might 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. Nevertheless it was skateboarding that basically caught my consideration.
Choosing 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 stuffed with floating platforms housing (you guessed it) conventions. A bounty has led us right here, concentrating on senator Muppy Doo, a politician who’s in league with the evil executives at Rhea Prescribed drugs who’re intent on turning humankind into… prescription tablets.
My mission? Make my means by means of a number of conventions to seek out him. First up is ParkingCon, a set of crashed vehicles piled on prime of one another with dozens of aliens combating over the few remaining parking areas – one area 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 needed (e.g. capturing aliens). At first, I got here to this with the strategy of an ordinary first-person shooter, specializing in enemy teams one by one, making an attempt to clear these parking areas, and biking between my two out there Gatlians: Sweezy (laser pistol) and Gus (shotgun). Then I hopped on the skateboard and all the things modified.
Excessive On Life Professional Skater Version
The skateboard successfully replaces your dash button, but it surely’s the pace and agility that comes with it that makes it such a recreation changer. The extra I moved across the degree 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 vehicles had been positioned excellent to offer the impression they had been ramps to leap off. That’s when it dawned on me that this whole degree was mainly a skatepark! That is going to be nice.
The pace of battle actually picked up the extra I grew to become comfy discovering areas to grind, whereas slicing down enemies left and proper with Sweezy and Gus. I might even “throw” my skateboard at enemies for a one-hit kill and located it vastly useful that the identical button tied to grinding was additionally Knifey’s head-latching means, which might well 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 circulate, even in a recreation the place you wouldn’t count on it.
In the event you recall from the primary recreation, traversal with Knifey’s grapple was a giant part, unlocking quite a lot 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 might do.
Persevering with to the following floating zone concerned grinding on floating buses, bouncing on large inflatable balloons, after which wall driving to soundly 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, transferring by means 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 means of highlights of the demo, and “by chance” main us to the conclusion of a boss battle with one of many recreation’s new characters, Sheath, voiced by the superb Ralph Ineson. What adopted was a hilarious (and bloody) dissection of his alien bounty hunter character – whose head is then remodeled into a brand new Gatlian. Yep, a boss voiced by a well-known actor can be a gun on this recreation.
Sheath complimented Sweezy and Gus properly with the texture of a battle rifle – Halo followers may 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 may suppose it’s). I really like that these Metroidvania-like parts are nonetheless current from the earlier recreation, opening areas previously unreachable after getting acquired the precise software to do the job.
Shoot, Shoot, Shoot!
As soon as we’ve stepped by means of the gates into MurderCon, the demo’s narrative shifted barely to concentrate on 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 had been neck deep in a battle royale, surrounded by a laser tag area aesthetic with numerous neon strewn about. And, sure, tons of enemies to shoot at. The speedy traversal components 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 gaggle of enemies. And Gus’ shotgun and disc shot skills are nice at clearing crowds of enemies. All this combating culminated in a boss battle with a big, ogre-like character named Brutus, who had a large pyramid-like helmet fused to his head. It wasn’t lengthy after that me and my Gatlians made brief work of him and had 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 normal fare of dodging incoming assaults and unleashing some harm with my Gatlians. Nevertheless it was the following section of the battle that I wasn’t fairly prepared for – and was not like something I’ve performed. The ultimate boss battle befell… within the menu display.
See, Muppy Doo has a shrinking means and was capable of get so small that he snuck into my swimsuit’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 means of my menu display, making an attempt to uncover the mini Muppy Doo who was trashing my sub programs.
Muppy would pop his head out from behind an icon, or begin destroying menu gadgets, 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 recreation… which rebooted into a completely totally different recreation – Bible Adventures. No, actually. Finally, issues continued to escalate to the purpose the place the one answer was to have Knifey stab me to loss of life – which he was greater than keen 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 de facto beginning to settle right into a mindset of, “Wouldn’t or not it’s humorous if…” and discover methods to undergo with it, whereas making it unbelievable enjoyable (and extremely humorous) within the course of. Discovering that stability shouldn’t be a simple factor to do – sort of like making an attempt to journey a skateboard whereas blasting aliens within the face. Of which we’re very excited to strive extra of as soon as Excessive On Life 2 launches for Xbox Sequence X|S on February 13, 2026, out there on day one with Recreation Cross Final.
Excessive On Life 2
Squanch Video games, Inc.
You’ve accomplished 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 will have what it takes to threat all of it and convey 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 staff of alien misfits shoot, stab, and skate your means by means of beautiful, harmful worlds all throughout the galaxy to explode the EVIL pharmaceutical conglomerate hell-bent on placing worth tags on HUMAN LIFE!
