Xbox Podcast: Justin Roiland Says High on Life Players Will Be Discovering New Details ‘For Months’

In the latest episode of the Xbox Podcast, Larry Hryb, Xbox’s Major Nelson, was joined by Justin Roiland to discuss his new first-person comedy-shooter, The Highest in LifeHe made it clear that the fans would have to put in a lot more effort to discover everything hidden within the game.

Discussing the game’s non-linear approach – the way in which players can choose what paths to take through the game, and have their decisions reflected back to them both narratively and mechanically – Roiland made clear how much work had gone into making sure the game included a truly deep level of detail. Roiland also pointed out that this means that there are many hidden details and secrets.

“There’s so many, — oh my god — there’s so many off-the-golden-path things in this game that people are going to continue to be discovering for months, which is not the norm, you know? Usually, it’s like, ‘OK we’ve got to really focus on the primary golden path.’ And we have so much stuff that’s like- we could have cut a lot of it. The reason that that all made it in is just the passion of the team.”

Roiland didn’t go into detail about what exactly those more hidden elements might be, but he was very clear about quite how much his developer, Squanch had put into helping players feel like the game was responding to the choices they made along the way:

“We tried to cram a lot of that into this game, from bigger things like the order of guns that you get and some of the larger story elements, to little tiny fun comedic things.”

Little decisions – like telling one of a couple of slum-guarding aliens which is hotter – will bubble back up all the way through the game, something Squanch prioritized, even with the extra voices, animations and more it required. But the decision to include all that extra content (and do all the extra work making it) was borne out of Roiland’s own gaming interests:

“I’m the kind of player that, when I’m bought into a game right away; like, a good example would be Fallout 3… I am taking my time, I’m poking around, I’m kind of going around the edges of the map. I want to see everything and see, ‘What did they think players might do, and what kind of response did they build in?… That’s just fun stuff that I love in games.”

If you’ve got an urge to start exploring The Highest in Life’s very weird world for those secrets, you can grab the game right now on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and Windows, and it’s a part of Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass. Enjoy your hunt!

It’s High on Life

Squanch Games, Inc.

☆☆☆☆☆
512

★★★★★

$59.99

PC Game Pass

Xbox Game Pass

From the Co-Creator of Rick & Morty and Solar Opposites, comes High On Life.

Fresh out of high school with no job and no ambition, you’ve really got nothing going for you until an alien cartel that wants to get high off humanity invades Earth. You and your team of charismatic talking gun companions must respond to the call from the hero and be the most dangerous intergalactic bounty hunter ever.

You will travel to many biomes, locations, across the universe, up against Garmantuous, his band of goons and collect loot. Meet unique characters and much more in this comedy adventure by Justin Roiland.