Squanch Video games’ foolish sci-fi shooter Excessive On Life shouldn’t be solely the most well-liked recreation on Sport Cross proper now, it’s the most important Sport Cross launch of 2022 and the most important third-party launch in Sport Cross historical past, in accordance with Microsoft. Not content material with simply two information, Excessive On Life can also be the “greatest single-player recreation launch on Sport Cross ever,” based mostly on “the variety of hours performed within the first 5 days of launch,” Microsoft says.
As of Monday, Squanch Video games’ new Xbox and Home windows PC launch was the most well-liked recreation on Sport Cross, outpacing different titles on the service like Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, Minecraft, FIFA 22, Forza Horizon 5, Rainbow Six Siege, and Halo Infinite on console and PC. That’s a powerful feat for a recreation independently revealed by way of Microsoft’s ID@Xbox program, however there are a couple of causes that assist clarify why Excessive On Life managed to set so many information.
For one, Excessive On Life shouldn’t be out there on competing platforms — there’s no Nintendo Change or PlayStation model of the sport. It’s a de facto Microsoft unique. Excessive On Life additionally dropped through the usually slower month of December, the place new recreation releases are few and much between, which means it had little compete with.
Sport Cross hasn’t seen many AAA marquee releases in 2022; the delays of Arkane’s Redfall and Bethesda’s Starfield to 2023 meant that Microsoft’s lineup for this yr was skinny in comparison with the subsequent, when video games like Forza Motorsport, Minecraft Legends, and STALKER 2 will even be a part of Sport Cross. An unique title like Excessive On Life — which comes with a built-in viewers, due to Squanch Video games founder Justin Roiland’s work on Rick and Morty — will get the prospect to face out and set information on this atmosphere.
It helps that Excessive On Life is a reasonably good recreation in its personal proper, with respectable taking pictures and strong first-person traversal, drawing a few of its inspiration from the Metroid Prime video games. Whether or not Roiland’s model of humor aligns with yours is one other story. However it’s the right instance of a Sport Cross recreation, as Polygon’s Ryan Gilliam famous in a latest Sub Gems column:
Excessive on Life is a recreation that can both make you cringe so arduous that you just flip it off within the first 10 minutes, or chortle your ass off all the best way to the sport’s first boss. The wonder is that, with Sport Cross, both of these outcomes are completely acceptable. Both you’ll discover a new recreation that you just’re excited to see by way of to the top, otherwise you’ll delete it off your arduous drive ceaselessly and by no means give it some thought once more — no hurt, no foul.
Excessive On Life is playable on Home windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Collection X by way of Sport Cross. Xbox Sport Cross and PC Sport Cross each value $9.99 a month. PC Sport Cross consists of EA Play entry, which gives one other 70 video games on PC. Xbox Sport Cross Final, at $14.99 monthly, offers subscribers entry to every thing — the PC Sport Cross and Xbox Sport Cross libraries, EA Play on each console and PC — in addition to Xbox Stay Gold membership, which is required for on-line multiplayer.
