‘There goes our E for Everybody rating’: ‘Rick and Morty’ creator’s new game will let you shoot a child

According to a new look at High on Life, the upcoming game by Justin Roiland, the game will let you kill a child. 

High on Life will be developed by Squanch Games, the developer created by Roiland, famous for creating the animated series Rick and Morty and Solar Opposites. The game is scheduled to release this year, on both Xbox and PC, on December 13, 2022. Squanch Games previously developed the game Trover Saves the Universe, which featured Roiland, who voices Rick and Morty in Rick and Morty, as the main character. 

Justin Roiland will also be lending his voice talents to High on Life, and this time he will be playing the playable character’s talking gun, which is called a Gatlian. As you can see in the clip above, the Gatlian will be one of the many sources of humor in the game, as the gun uses coarse language suitable for mature audiences (that is bleeped), while refusing to kill a child. 

Of course, you eventually kill the child goading you in the clip, leading the gun to exclaim “normally killing children in games isn’t allowed but he’s dead, we killed this kid, are you happy now? We killed a kid… There goes our E for Everybody rating.” The rating joke is referencing the Entertainment Software Rating Board or ESRB, as games that are deemed appropriate for children have an ‘E for Everybody’ rating. 

This was not the only clip of the game to be shared recently, with High on Life sharing the spotlight during Gamescom’s Opening Night Live, which was hosted by Geoff Keighley, the host of The Game Awards. The clip in question which you can see a portion of below features not a gun, but a knife with an Australian accent. And very much on brand with caricatures of Australians, the knife throws in an expletive whenever it can. 

Even though Roiland’s last game Trover Saves the Universe was available on more platforms than just Xbox and PC, including PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Oculus Quest as it had a VR component, High on Life will be released only on Xbox and PC. It is not currently known if the game will release on other platforms sometime after it releases, but it does seem to be a trend with Xbox exclusivity like Tunic. However, it will be a day one release on Xbox Game Pass. 

High on Life is currently scheduled to release on Xbox and PC on December 13, 2022.