Xbox says High on Life is the biggest Game Pass launch of 2022

High on Life has broken several notable Xbox Game Pass engagement records, Microsoft announced on Tuesday.

Squanch Games’ comedy first-person shooter was released on December 12 and is available as part of both Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass.

According to Microsoft, High On Life is Xbox Game Pass’ biggest launch of 2022, the biggest third-party Game Pass launch of all time, and the biggest release of a single player-only game in the subscription service’s history.

The above statistics are based on the number of hours played in the game’s first five days of availability.

“This was our first time launching a game with Game Pass, and we’ve been blown away by the response from the players who have made us the most popular game on Game Pass right now,” said Squanch Games studio director Mike Fridley.

“When Squanch Games was first created, it was to make the games we wanted to play – and Game Pass is helping us reach the players that want to play those games too.”

High on Life has received a distinctly mixed critical reception from media outlets. Currently, it has scores of 64 (Xbox Series X/S) and 68 (PC) on review aggregation site Metacritic, with credible outlets such as PC Gamer (4/10), PCGamesN (5/10) and The Guardian (2/5) publishing negative verdicts.

Other respected publications such as IGN (8/10) and Gamespot (7/10) published more favourable write-ups, but still not the kind of reviews typically associated with a blockbuster title.