High on Life won't be a constant audio overload, according to the developers at Squanch Games. The upcoming FPS has Metroidvania elements and lets you play as an intergalactic bounty hunter working to take out an alien cartel. All of the footage we've seen thus far has been brightly colored, visually busy, and full of chirpy dialogue.
Matty Studivan, executive producer, sat down with GamesRadar's Josh West at Gamescom 2022, where he was asked about the decision to make the game very loud, both audibly and visibly.
"With this game, we have it in these early levels that it's very talk[ative]. We're trying to teach you a lot, we're trying to balance the cognitive load for the player. But after these levels, the levels open up a lot. They're a lot more geographically open," Studivan promises. "Between that we try to really have the moments of quiet. When you're fighting you have the typical barks, but we're not having them blab in your ear the whole time. However we also have four different guns that you can choose, so we can have one of them that's always blabbing, we're getting one that's less [talkative]."
The responses to High on Life's Gamescom trailer, which features a boss battle peppered with curses from your gun who sounds exactly like Morty Smith, were mixed, with some players finding it quite funny and others thinking the exact opposite. But Studivan and the rest of the Squanch team are listening to player feedback to ensure High on Life isn't too grating.
"We read everything people write, and we're concerned about it ourselves, so we're trying to find what the balance is," Studivan insists. High On Life is releasing on December 13, 2022 as an Xbox "console launch exclusive," but it may come to other platforms in the future.
