High on Life series in development from Curb’s JB Smoove

Chatty gun game High on Life is set to be turned into an animated TV series, with Curb Your Own Enthusiasm’s JB Smoove signed on as producer.

Smoove starred in High on Life game as Gus, one of the game’s talking fish/guns, and Deadline reports there’s a “good chance” he’ll reprise the role in the upcoming animated series as well as producing the project.

High on Life launched in December 2022 for PC and Xbox and was the year’s biggest launch on Xbox Game Pass, but proved controversial even before release, after it emerged the game included AI art and voice acting.

Just weeks after High on Life launched, Rick and Morty creator Justin Roiland – co-founder of the game’s development studio Squanch Games – was charged with domestic violence (charges which were later dropped due to “insufficient evidence”). Still, Roiland departed Squanch and was fired from Rick and Morty by Cartoon Network.

A PlayStation version of High on Life launched in the summer of 2023 for PS4 and PS5.

Smoove is now working with Squanch and his own production company, Alternate Side Productions, to adapt the property into a Rick and Morty-style series.

“When Squanch Games originally reached out to JB Smoove (I like to talk about myself in the third person) about voicing a character in their incredible video game High On Life, my first question was what does my character look like? They told me that I would be a fish that shoots… which makes perfect sense to me! As a vegan I feel a fish should have the right to defend itself?!” Smoove said.

“And now that I’m partnered with Squanch Games and Striker Entertainment to bring the hilarious High On Life to series it feels like it was inevitable! They invited me to join them in the gaming universe and now I’m helping them move into the TV world! It’s a case of a game recognizing game! High on Life is wild, weird, and wonderful, and the series is going to be that and more! are locked and loaded and ready to go!”

Eurogamer was less a fan of High on Life in its review.

“A miserable cocktail of ideas from other action-platformers and the worst parts of Rick and Morty,” Edwin Evans-Thirlwell wrote in Eurogamer’s High on Life review, dubbing it “a mediocre shooter with an unfunny attitude problem.”