High on Life: How to Retrieve Knifey and Defeat 9-Torg

High on Life, the latest fare into Justin Roiland’s twisted, improv comedy mind is now available. In the first mission of the game, in an effort to prove you have the chops required to take down the G3 Cartel, the infamous (but retired) bounty hunter Gene Zaroothian tasks you with bringing down the Torg Family Matriarch, 9-Torg.

But, in order to pull this off, you’ll need to do a couple of things first, including nabbing a psychopathic, but sentient, knife. Here’s how to find Knifey and Defeat 9-Torg in High on Life.

How to Find Knifey the Psychopathic Knife

Good, Old-Fashioned Murder

To start, leave your house and head for the slums, using your Info Scanner to generate a waypoint. It can be a little distracting navigating through this world, but just focus on the waypoint and you’ll eventually make it to a gate leading to the slums. Unfortunately, the gate is guarded by a red alien and a blue alien, who ask you to decide which is most attractive. Whichever one you pick will open their gate, while the other claims they’ll never open theirs for you. I don’t think it matters as they both lead to the same place.

Follow the path until you reach a character whom I will dub ‘Fresh Meat Marty’ for no discernable reason. I call him that because he constantly refers to you as ‘fresh meat’ until you have had enough and decide to shoot him, much to the chagrin of Kenny, your Gatlien pistol. You might even feel bad for killing a kid until you meet Marty’s mother further down the path, who reveals that he was 30 years old. So, we didn’t kill a kid! We just did regular, good, old-fashioned murder! Great.

A Knife in a Laundromat

Speaking of murder, you’ll then be tasked with clearing out an entire city block of 9-Torg’s minions. It’s OK because they’re enemy combatants … right? After that’s over, a nearby fisherman who begs you to talk to him tells you that there’s a path to 9-Torg through the nearby laundromat. Follow the path, clearing any enemies out until you reach the door to the laundromat. You can either charge in, or you can listen to the conversation between a rather violent individual and an alien couple.

If you play your cards right, you’ll be able to waltz right into the room where Knifey is. Grab him, then kill the two aliens before they know what hit them. Now, it’s time to find 9-Torg.

How to Defeat 9-Torg, the Torg Family Matriarch

Grappling All Day

OK — with Kenny in your right hand, and Knifey in your left, it’s time to kill 9-Torg. Knifey may be handy to have for offensive purposes, but he also serves as a grappling hook. To get out of the laundromat, take a look above you and use Knifey to propel yourself up-and-out. I hope you like the grappling controls, because you’ll be using them a lot in this section.

Also — keep in mind that you can use Knifey to cut open those chests you may have found until now. If you’d like to score some Pesos, keep an eye out for those. In any case, keep moving along the path, killing any enemies you may come across. Eventually, you’ll gain access to Sludgewerks, where you’ll witness 9-Torg torturing their fellow clone, 5-Torg. Did I mention 9-Torg is named that because she’s the ninth Torg clone? No? Oh well. That’s a thing.

Baby’s First Boss Fight

You’ll soon find yourself in the middle of your first boss fight. It’s pretty self-explanatory, but I’ll explain it, nonetheless. For the most part, you just need to shoot 9-Torg whenever she’s visible, while also dodging her own attacks. She’ll occasionally dive into the surrounding sludge, pop back up and attack you with a laser, so use the surrounding boxes as cover. If you’re feeling brave — and don’t mind taking some hits — you can close the distance and slash her with Knifey, but I don’t think it does a noticeable difference.

Eventually, you’ll hear a buzzer, and the platform will sink into the sludge. Thankfully, there are several grapple points in the air above you, so use Knifey to grapple back and forth until the platform comes back. Don’t even worry about inflicting any damage to 9-Torg during this phase, just focus on surviving.

As you whittle down her health bar, she’ll try one last tactic to take you out. It involves a gigantic laser that will chase you around the arena, so just keep grappling until it ends. Eventually, she’ll wear herself out, and collapse. This marks the end of the boss fight, so pat yourselves on the back! Carve out a piece of her flesh to mark your victory, then choose to spare or kill 5-Torg … I guess.