Justin Roiland’s Rick and Morty grew from a niche sci-fi animated comedy into a global phenomenon seemingly overnight. Its unique blend of science fiction tropes and surreal humour catapulted it to success. And Roiland’s Squanch Games studio channeled that into their new video game – High on Life – which has seen record-breaking success on Xbox and PC Game Pass. But will High on Life come to PS5? Or will it remain exclusive to Xbox forever?
Compared to PlayStation, Xbox has had a muted year. Outside of the usual cross-platform blockbusters, it hasn’t had any exclusive games that rival Horizon Forbidden West or God of War Ragnarok.
While the hey-day of platform exclusivity is far behind us, it’s still something that dictates which console people choose to buy. And with such a lacklustre line-up on Xbox, it’s really no surprise that the PS5 is ahead in the sales charts.
Xbox’s one saving grace is Game Pass, which offers players a selection of games for a monthly fee. Sony’s revamped PlayStation Plus is similar – but it’s not as strong as Microsoft’s offering. And that’s one reason to opt for an Xbox over a PS5.
High on Life is a game that many would be unwilling to pay for based on the trailers alone. Yes, it looked funny to Rick and Morty fans – but that was about all it had going for it.
Its success is a testament to the power of the monthly subscription. Thanks to the option to dive in for free, players are finding out it’s a fun, charming, and pretty hilarious first-person shooter.
As a result, High on Life has catapulted to the top of the Xbox Game Pass charts. And that’s peaked the interest of PlayStation players. But will High on Life come to PS5?
Will High on Life Come To PS5?
At present, High on Life is doing incredibly well for itself as an exclusive. Not only is it sitting atop the Game Pass rankings, it’s also in the top 5 best selling games on Steam.
However you look at it, High of Life‘s success stems from the hype cultivated through Game Pass players. That positive feedback has spurred players without subscriptions to buy the game at full-price. And if PC users are doing it, there’s no reason PlayStation players wouldn’t.
PS5 owners hoping the game comes to their console are probably asking themselves why it hasn’t already. After all, it’s an untapped market. But it comes down to exclusivity agreements.
This is all speculative as we don’t actually have the details of such an agreement. However, it is likely that one has been signed between Microsoft and Squanch Games that includes exclusivity to Xbox.
This will probably have involved Microsoft paying a fee to secure exclusivity, through which they hope to attract new customers to their console and subscription service.
So, will High on Life come to PS5? There has been no official word on High on Life coming to PlayStation. However, even though it is currently exclusive to PC and Xbox, that doesn’t mean it will be forever. Many exclusive games are simply “timed exclusives”. And that means they do, eventually, arrive on other platforms.
One recent example is Deathloop which was initially exclusive to PlayStation before arriving on Xbox one year later.
While we don’t yet know for certain, there’s still hope that High on Life will come to PS5. But PlayStation owners might be waiting a while.
Do you hope High on Life comes to PS5? Let us know in the comment section below and don’t forget to check out our other gaming articles…
