What happened to Kenny in High on Life? Look offscreen, not in the game
Kenny — the wisecracking blue pistol who carried you through the original High on Life — is gone.
He doesn't appear in the High on Knife DLC. He doesn't appear in High on Life 2. And the reason has nothing to do with the story.
It has everything to do with the man who voiced him.
The offscreen answer
Kenny was voiced by Justin Roiland, co-creator of Rick and Morty and co-founder of Squanch Games, the studio behind High on Life. In January 2023, it became public that Roiland had been charged in 2020 with felony domestic battery and false imprisonment in Orange County, California, stemming from an alleged incident with a woman he was dating. He'd pleaded not guilty.
Within days, the fallout was total:
- Adult Swim — severed ties with Roiland on 24 January 2023.
- Squanch Games — Roiland resigned as CEO on 16 January.
- Hulu — dropped him from Solar Opposites and Koala Man.
- Rick and Morty — his voice roles were recast for season 7 onwards.
The criminal charges were dismissed in March 2023 — the Orange County DA cited insufficient evidence. But in September 2023, NBC News reported further allegations of sexual assault and inappropriate online communication with underage girls. Roiland denied those allegations through his lawyer.
Why Squanch didn't just recast
The studio considered it. But they decided that replacing Roiland's voice with someone else's for Kenny would backfire — drawing more attention to the problem than simply writing the character out. So they dropped Kenny entirely and shifted the story to other Gatlians. In the DLC, Sweezy takes the lead. In High on Life 2, Sweezy and Gus fill Kenny's role.
Squanch Games said in a statement that the "passionate team at Squanch will keep developing games we know our fans will love while continuing to support and improve High on Life."
What happened to Kenny in-game?
The in-universe explanation is thinner. In the DLC, the bounty hunter is simply said to have dropped Kenny at some point — no dramatic scene, no farewell. In High on Life 2, it goes darker.
If you find Dr. Gurgula's Hidden Transmission, there's an image of a blue Gatlian resembling Kenny — dissected on a table. Kenny was captured and taken apart.
Whether he can return in a future instalment is left open, but with Roiland no longer involved in Squanch Games, a comeback seems unlikely.
For the record: High on Life launched in December 2022 and became the most-played game on Xbox Game Pass that month. Roiland resigned from the studio barely four weeks later.