New High on Life clip lampshades the ‘invincible child’ trope from titles like Skyrim, Fallout

High on Life is the next title from Squanch Games, the development studio founded by Rick and Morty creator Justin Roiland. The shooter sees you exploring an alien world with an arsenal of talking guns (one of which sounds an awful lot like Morty). While you’ll be gunning down a lot of big bad guys and bosses during the adventure, High on Life will also let you cross a long-held line and shoot alien kids too.

As shown in a brief gameplay snippet from IGN, High on Life “isn’t afraid” to let you shoot a kid just like any other alien foe. Perhaps it’s allowed because the character is distinctly not a human, or perhaps there’s more context from the full game that we’re missing. Either way, it falls in line with the shock factor that Roiland’s work can often incorporate.

This isn’t just a purposefully tasteless moment in High on Life, however. It’s a specific, satirical response to a trope from games in the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series. Those titles often feature child characters that many players find annoying, and even though those games allow you to attack pretty much any NPC, children have always been off-limits. They’re invincible even when in dangerous situations — this is why Fallout modding often includes the option to actually make these kids mortal. High on Life is crossing that line on its own accord, losing its “E for Everyone rating” in the process, as the gun remarks. Pretty sure it was always going to get that M rating, buddy.

High on Life was originally set to launch in October. Its new release date is December 13, so it’s still coming this year. It’ll be available on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store. As you might guess from the lack of a PlayStation version, High on Life will be available on Game Pass for Xbox and PC on day one.