Easter Eggs Only Hardcore Fans Noticed In High On Life
"High on Life" is the newest title released by Squanch Games, the games studio was co-founded by "Rick and Morty" co-creator Justin Roiland. The studio's games heavily feature Roiland's signature sense of humor and are filled with irreverent jokes, references, and plenty of fourth-wall breaks. "High on Life" is no different, and it even gives the player talking guns so that they are never without a character delivering jokes.
Squanch's newest game is also a sci-fi first-person shooter that places a heavy emphasis on exploration and player freedom, which means the devs were able to hide numerous secrets and easter eggs for players to track down and find. Many of them can be difficult to locate, however, as they require the player carrying out certain actions, holding a particular gun, or just taking long enough to complete an objective. Here are some of the easter eggs in "High on Life" that many players are likely to miss among all the quips and blasting.
Beware of spoilers ahead for "High on Life."
A ballad of queso and toast
One of the areas that players spend the most time in during "High on Life" is Blim City, a galactic hub that the player's house is teleported to when they escape being caught and smoked by the wicked G3 Cartel. Players frequently return to Blim City between missions to purchase upgrades, interact with characters, and explore all of its nooks and crannies.
Many of those aforementioned nooks and crannies hold plenty of rewards for curious players. One of the most hilarious of these hidden bits is an entire song players can listen to. To find and hear a secret ballad about how much the singer loves queso and toast, players need to approach a particular phone booth in Blim City and interact with a large green button on the side of it.
After pressing the button, players hear a phone ring before a recording of the song begins. The longer the song goes on, the funnier it becomes. If composing a full-length song doesn't prove a deep love for queso and toast, what does?
Tammy and the T-Rex
Whenever players return to their home in Blim City, they can talk to their sister and Gene, a former bounty hunter who has taken up residence in their house. Gene stays in the player's living room and constantly watches TV, which leads into a truly bizarre easter egg.
Most of what players see on the TV are short alien advertisements or news broadcasts, but players will also notice that a real-world movie plays on occasion. That program is none other than a cult horror-comedy movie from 1994 entitled "Tammy and the T-Rex." In fact, players can watch the movie in its entirety right inside the game. The movie itself is a strange one, following a character named Tammy (Denise Richards) who dates a mechanical T-Rex with the mind of her murdered boyfriend.
This isn't the first time a video game has allowed players to watch an entire movie inside of it. Players could watch "To Kill a Mockingbird" in the 2007 game "The Darkness," for instance — but this movie choice is definitely a lot stranger.
Calling out the critics
The humor in "High on Life" is frequently self-referential. Characters comment on design elements of the game, break the fourth wall by explaining that the developers worked really hard getting the jetpack upgrade to work right, and even mock the player's choices directly. These jokes mean that "High on Life" doesn't take itself too seriously and primarily aims to deliver a number of good laughs for players. However, there is one fourth-wall breaking joke that calls out video game critics in particular.
This particular easter egg appears in the game's Port Terrine world, which is themed around a kind of wild west desert town. In one part of that level, players can find a small doorway that is covered by a stack of boxes, preventing players from entering it. When players approach it with the gun Kenny equipped, Kenny will comment on this blockage being a bit of "lazy level design."
Lol hey @Kotaku is in High On Life pic.twitter.com/gCMtVti4z7
— alyssa mercante (@alyssa_merc) December 13, 2022
Kenny then calls out specific media outlets that would review the game, including Kotaku and Polygon, asking if things like this will ultimately ding the game's review scores.
Platforming faves
During one section of "High on Life," players have to infiltrate the G3 Cartel by getting covered in armor made of orange goo. This allows them to infiltrate a training event for new recruits, in which they watch a presentation, fight other recruits, and complete various challenges. As part of the training, players have to complete a simple platforming section over flooring that is intermittently electrified.
When the player does this section with Kenny equipped, he comments on the platforming and says it reminds him of some of his favorite video games. The first game that he mentions is "Lucky's Tale," released in 2016 by Playful Studios. While "Lucky's Tale" does feature 3D platforming, it is not played in first-person, making the comparison seem more like a developer giving a shoutout to one of their favorite recent games.
Kenny also references another famous platformer, but struggles to remember its name. He finally comes close to it, seemingly settling on a reference to 1989's "Super Mario Land."
One for the patient
Players have to watch a number of bizarre orientation videos when they infiltrate the G3 Cartel by pretending to be a new recruit. One of these videos ends by telling the player they are being subjected to a test of patience and need to sit in the room for a full hour. The player's guns then tell the player that they shouldn't do that and should instead find a way to escape the room.
Escaping the room is very straightforward, as players can find a small hole in one wall that they can crawl through. However, there is a secret easter egg hidden in the scene for players who are patient enough to instead wait the entire hour. The screen will turn back on to play a short video mocking them for sitting in the room and doing nothing for so long.
"What an achievement! Kudos to you," the recruiter will sarcastically bark. "Hope you felt like that was worth your time." After the sarcastic clip, a door is opened and the player is free to go.
A reference to Trover
Players must gather pesos to purchase upgrades for their suit and guns in "High on Life." While there are pawn stores on each level that offer a couple of upgrades each, players will likely purchase most of their wares from a pawn shop in Blim City. This pawnshop is by far the largest, and the counters at the center of the store are filled with joke items. The player can try to purchase these, but will typically be given a comedic reason from the shop owner as to why they can't.
One of these joke items, a Crystal of Ithecles, is a direct reference to Squanch Games' previous title, "Trover Saves the Universe." The item in question is called a Crystal of Ithecles. "Trover Saves the Universe" is a comedic game that is filled with puzzles, dark player decisions, and experiments within a unique second-person perspective. Throughout the game players get Crystals of Ithecles to upgrade their abilities, which makes its placement in the pawn shop here an appropriate throwback to the studio's previous work.
Nipulon knows games
One of the most memorable enemies that players encounter in "High on Life" is the penultimate boss, Nipulon. Not only is he visually memorable for the little windows in his armor that show off his nipples, but the design of the battle is also extremely unique. This is because he quite literally gets into the head of the player character, transporting them to a psychedelic world where the size of the player's surroundings constantly changes.
There are also segments during the fight where the player falls down a seemingly infinite column of strange visuals, where they are circled by giant Nipulon heads. During these segments, Nipulon taunts the player in a variety of humorous ways, like giving the player an embarrassing trophy or achievement and referencing the video game character Psycho Mantis.
Psycho Mantis is an iconic boss from the "Metal Gear Solid" franchise that would toy with players by making their controller rumble or reading their memory card. Nipulon references Psycho Mantis during the fight while also saying that he is looking into how much time the player has spent playing games like "Fortnite" and "Minecraft." It is a really funny moment that is easy to miss, and it's nice to see "High on Life" giving a nod to a possible inspiration for the fight.
Do you recall Total Recall?
"High on Life" players step into the shoes of an intergalactic bounty hunter trying to take down all the leaders of the G3 Cartel. Players have to first accept the bounty on each boss' head, then accept the reward for completing the bounty afterward. To do so, players have to interact with a massive computer set up in their living room. The computer allows them to access available bounties and quests and transport directly to different planets.
The player character needs to scan their hand to access the computer, but since the scanner is made for a different species, it only has spaces for three fingers and a thumb. This means the player character has to put two fingers together when they scan their hand, squeezing the two fingers into a single finger spot. This seems like just another humorous little detail at first glance, but it may actually be a reference to the sci-fi action movie "Total Recall."
Shoutouts to @highonlifegame (probably) having a Total Recall reference every time you use the Bounty 5K pic.twitter.com/tTZNrPnwMX
— Devante AKA "Captain Cheeks" AKA Big Booty Bass (@Lycanvenom) December 13, 2022
In "Total Recall," Arnold Schwarzenegger has to do a very similar thing to scan his hand in a similar interface. The way that he positions his hand doesn't exactly match the player character's hand in "High on Life," but it is close enough to definitely feel like a pointed reference.
High on Life breaks bad
While exploring Blim City, players are encouraged to look around vertically as well as horizontally. With traversal tools like magnet boots and a jetpack, players are able to check through every level of Blim City for secrets. In one section of the city, players can find a full pizza resting on a roof. This out of place meal is likely a reference to an iconic scene from "Breaking Bad."
The scene in question sees the show's protagonist Walter White trying to bring a pizza to his estranged wife. When things don't go well, he grows frustrated and throws the pizza onto the roof of the house, resulting in a great shot of the pizza landing right in front of the camera. The scene has gone on to become a meme in its own right, so it makes sense that a game with the comedic sensibilities of "High on Life" would throw a random shoutout like this into the design of Blim City.
The secret ending
Perhaps the biggest reason "High on Life" gives players to explore is so they can find the game's secret ending. This scene can be found by players who use their time bubble ability to pass through a giant spinning fan in the Human Haven. Doing so takes them to a procession of corridors and vents that lead to a laboratory filled with dead humans. The scene makes it explicitly clear that the humans were getting tested on in some way.
When the player continues deeper into the facility, they eventually find the mayor of Blim City doing something to one of the bodies as well. The mayor recognizes them, however, and runs away before the player can confront them. The player then finds and talks to an alien scientist that is behind the facility, who blatantly sets up a sequel to the game. Finally, the player runs into two agents of the mayor's who offer to give them back Earth if they can keep the secret of the facility to themselves.
This easter egg is particularly interesting because of how it reveals a secret explanation for "High on Life" while also setting up the sequel. This seems to indicate that it is the canonical ending of the game, and players can even get an achievement or trophy for finding it that is called Sequel Bait.
Calling out Fallout
One of the first places that players visit to in "High on Life" is the Blim City slums. To get there, players have to pass a security gate and a massive drainage pipe. The pipe is filled with people in different states of injury or worry. The NPCs say a few lines to the player, but one of them, a child, directly confronts the protagonist.
The child mocks the player and literally chides them into shooting him. Kenny tells the player not to do it, but the player can shoot and kill the kid if they want, crossing an invisible moral line that most games wouldn't dare. This gives them an achievement called "Fallout Doesn't Let You Do This." The achievement's name seems like a cheeky jab toward another sci-fi shooter on the surface, but it actually runs deeper than that.
This is because the ability to kill younger NPCs is a contentious one in the "Fallout" community. In the first two "Fallout" games, players can kill children and even earn the title of Childkiller for killing too many. This also resulted in the games nearly being banned in Europe. Later entries in the series would not allow players to carry out such a despicable act — but "High on Life" is more than willing to step up to the plate.