You’re Not Stuck – Here’s How to Reach and Beat James Stevenson in High on Life 2

After spending well over an hour getting lost between sprinklers, fans, and that cursed pixel world, I finally nailed a clean run on James Stevenson’s bounty in High on Life 2. This is the third major contract, and it combines tricky skateboard platforming, a sneaky painting puzzle, timed dialogue, and a surprisingly technical boss fight as the Blue Wizard.

If you’re stuck on the penthouse entrance, the greenhouse puzzles, the N64-style world, or the final fight, this walkthrough will take you through every step I wish I’d known from the start.

Step 1: Getting to the Penthouse Without the Front Door

Once you accept the James Stevenson bounty, head to Circuit Arcadia and look for the fancy golden hotel on the northwest side of the map. Naturally, the game lets you walk right into the lobby… and then security immediately blocks you because you’re not a tenant.

Don’t waste time arguing with the guards. The real route is outside:

• Exit the hotel and look to the side for a guy pinned under a mattress. That’s your sign you’re in the right place.
• Nearby is a parked truck. Use Travis’s alt-fire (Glob Shot) on the truck’s launch pad to fling it up into the air.
• Use your skateboard to bounce off the mattress and land on the truck while it’s airborne, then jump to the far ledge.

Personal tip: I kept undershooting this jump until I reminded myself to build skateboard speed before hitting the mattress. Treat it like a mini half-pipe run, not a standing jump.

From there, just follow the rooftop path. You’ll get more chatter from Lizzie about your mysterious target, and soon you’ll reach the rooftop gardens where the real puzzles start.

Rooftop Greenhouses & Sprinkler Skate Lines

The gardens are a chain of greenhouse rooms where sprinklers become grind rails for your skateboard. Here’s the sequence, room by room, and what tripped me up the first time:

• First garden room
  Jump up to the upper balcony and hit the big button. This toggles the sprinkler on, turning the water stream into a grindable line. Hop on with your skateboard and ride it across.
• Second room – bulb platform & fan
  Shoot the glowing plant bulb to spawn a leafy platform. Climb onto it.
  From there you’ll see a spinning fan in the wall. Swap to Sweezy and fire a time bubble at the fan to slow/stop it, then quickly jump through before it spins back up.
  On the other side is the sprinkler control. Activate it, then ride the new water line to the next area.
• Multi-bulb climb
  You’ll enter a taller room with several plant bulbs. Shoot them all to create a staircase of temporary platforms. Go fast-these can despawn. Climb to the top and exit the greenhouse.

Outside, you’ll hit another small garden blocked by a gap again.

• Shoot the bulb above the doorway to reveal the hidden room with the sprinkler control.
• Activate the sprinkler, then return and use the water line.
• On the far side, inflate the lugblob (using your standard interact/alt-fire, depending how you’ve used lugblobs earlier) and ride it up.
• Freeze the next fan with Sweezy’s time bubble to pass safely.

You’ll repeat a similar pattern: climb up to where the sprinklers are, activate them, then chain bulbs + water rails into the final greenhouse.

The Final Greenhouse Junction Puzzle

This last room is the one that kept me stuck the longest-it looks like “just another sprinkler section,” but you actually need to overload a door with power before you can turn anything on.

• On the right side, there’s a fan hiding a lugblob. Freeze the fan with Sweezy, grab/launch the lugblob out into the main room, and inflate it to reach the small control room up top.
• Inside that room, shoot the plant bulb. This drops a big power junction in the center of the lower floor.
• Back down below, you’ll see cables and amplifiers (“amps”) you can link to this main junction. Use Travis’s Glob Shot / your usual power-link mechanic to connect the junction to the nearby amp, then daisy-chain amps until the line runs into the door’s power box.
• When you’ve connected enough amps, the door overloads and pops open, revealing the sprinkler controls.

Turn on both sprinklers, then skateboard along their water streams to finally reach the penthouse balcony.

Step 2: Solving the Empty Penthouse & Painting Puzzle

Reaching the penthouse only to find it empty is peak High on Life. Don’t leave-this is where the mission really opens up.

First, use your scanner. You’ll notice several paintings highlighted in that familiar “interact with me” outline.

• Left painting – Walk through it like a portal. You’ll appear in a bathroom. Grab the book lying near the tub/sink, then go back through the painting.
• Right painting – This leads to a very personal (and pretty gross) private room. There’s another book on the table. Grab it and exit quickly if the decor is making you uncomfortable.
• Bookshelf – Back in the main penthouse, interact with the big bookshelf and place both books. This reveals a new secret painting between shelves.

Step through that new painting and you’ll be warped into a low-res, N64-style realm. It’s jarring the first time, but all your guns and abilities still function—just with a retro filter over everything.

Step 3: Navigating the Pixel World & Reaching the Town

From your spawn point, cross the bridge and follow the linear path. Eventually you’ll find skeleton-like enemies bullying a strange floating figure (this is Apples). Clear the enemies first—the arena is tight, so I recommend a wide-spread weapon like Gus or strong crowd control from Creature.

Talk to Apples afterwards. He points you toward the Blue Wizard, who supposedly knows where James Stevenson is. Keep moving forward until you reach a river section with fast-moving platforms.

River Crossing & Waterfall Climb

This is another Sweezy showcase:

• Use Sweezy’s time bubble on the moving platforms across the river to slow them down, then skateboard/jump your way across.
• On the far side, pick up and inflate the lugblob to reach the upper ledge.
• Now you’ll see red platforms moving vertically along a waterfall. Again, slow them with Sweezy and ride them up, clearing any enemies that spawn along the way.

At the top, you’ll arrive at the town gate. Two guards stop you and recognize Apples as a villain.

Talking Your Way Past the Guards

The key here is to distance yourself from Apples. When you get a dialogue option that lets Sweezy dismiss or insult him (something along the lines of “F that guy”), pick that. The guards like that answer, kick Apples away, and open the gate.

Don’t worry: siding against Apples here doesn’t lock you out of the bounty; it just affects this scene and makes your life easier.

Inside town, follow the objective marker through a short skateboard section along the river. You’ll eventually hit a locked gate with a green arrow panel nearby—use Travis’s ability on the arrow to open the way forward.

Step 4: Powering the Gate & Stopping the Gatlian Execution

Past the river gate, guards mention a public Gatlian execution you can’t yet access. The door is locked, and this is your next power puzzle.

• In the courtyard, look for multiple power junctions and amplifiers.
• Your goal is to link them so enough juice reaches the execution gate’s power box that it overloads and opens.
• One crucial amp is hidden under some blocks at the top of the stairs. Clear the blocks, hook that amp into your chain, and make sure the final cable runs to the gate.

Once the gate is open, you’ll get a short explanation about the execution. Dialogue here doesn’t change the outcome—pick whatever you like; it mostly adjusts the guard’s reactions.

Four-Minute Crowd Persuasion

Inside the arena, you’ve got a timer: four minutes to talk down the crowd and stop the execution of a Gatlian. There are three influential NPC “leaders” you need to convince—look for characters with unique outfits positioned around the stands.

The exact wording of responses can vary slightly depending on your gun interjections, but in general:

• With the more moral/empathetic leader, choose options that highlight the Gatlian’s innocence and the cruelty of public executions.
• With the self-interested leader, emphasize how the execution could backfire politically or financially.
• With the law-and-order type, lean on procedural arguments (“This trial was rushed,” “You don’t have the full evidence,” etc.).

If you mess up, they’ll stay hostile and the crowd won’t calm down. I personally needed two runs here—if time runs out, just reload the checkpoint and try different lines, watching which ones get a more positive reaction animation and tone.

Once all three leaders are convinced, the crowd disperses. Head to the execution platform, pull the lever to free the Gatlian (Bowie), and pick him up.

A hologram of the Blue Wizard appears and reveals himself as James Stevenson. Bowie clearly knows him, and things get personal fast. Enemies spawn—clear them out to move on.

Step 5: Reaching the Blue Wizard’s Castle

Follow your scanner out of the arena. Shortly, you’ll hit a door blocked by flames.

• Equip Bowie and use his Soul Hole ability on the eye sigil above the flames.
• The portal effect will dump water barrels down, extinguishing the fire and opening the way.

From here, the path is mostly linear uphill. You’ll see the Blue Wizard’s castle in the distance, but first you have to dodge huge boulders rolling down the path.

• Use the side platforms on the left and right to avoid the boulders.
• Keep moving—standing still in the main lane is the fastest way to get flattened.
• Once you reach the gate, use Bowie’s Soul Hole on the eye above it to close the boulder chute.

Head into the side entrance on the right to reach the castle’s front.

Quiz Bridge: Answering the Wizard’s Questions

At the castle entrance, James appears as a hologram and offers “collaboration,” throwing up a quiz with multiple-choice answers on a big holographic screen.

You have two options: solve Creature’s alternate puzzle route, or ace the quiz for a trophy-style reward. I went for the quiz:

• Use Bowie to shoot the correct answers on the screen—his projectiles are precise, which helps.
• The questions reference earlier events and details about the world. If you’re unsure, listen to your guns’ commentary; they often hint at the right choice.

Perform well and the Blue Wizard lowers the bridge, letting you into the castle. Sit through his smug TV speech in the waiting room until the inner door unlocks.

Inside, you’ll finally see James sitting at a desk behind a visible force field. Shooting him does nothing yet. Use Bowie’s Soul Hole on the weak point in the barrier to trigger the real boss fight.

Step 6: Blue Wizard James Stevenson – Boss Fight Guide

Recommended Loadout & Arena Basics

The arena is wide and circular with pillars you can use for cover. I had the most success with:

• Bowie – Mandatory for revealing weak points and interacting with sigils.
• Gus – Huge close-mid DPS and great synergy with Soul Hole portals to reposition shots.
• Creature – Crowd control when ghouls and cherubs swarm you.
• Lezduit or Kenny – For big bursts when the wizard is exposed.

Key concept: The giant blue head form is mostly invulnerable. Your real damage windows happen after you use Bowie to break his protections and expose the true wizard.

Attack Patterns to Watch For

Throughout the fight, he cycles through several attacks:

• Summoned ghouls and cherubs
  He raises a hand and spawns waves of enemies. Kill them quickly—they drop shield pickups you’ll absolutely need. I like opening with Creature here to scatter them, then swapping to Gus or Lezduit to mop up.
• Ground shockwaves
  He points his hand at the floor and sends a glowing wave across the arena. Jump over it or hide behind a pillar. Later, he chains aerial shockwaves that force you to mix jumps and dashes.
• Triangle forcefields
  He fires triangle-shaped energy barriers from his hands, sometimes chaining multiple from one side before swapping to the other. Keep circling the arena and cut between gaps; don’t backpedal in a straight line or you’ll get pinned.
• Stone punch
  This is your big opportunity. He wraps a hand in stone and swings it out toward the arena.

Breaking the Stone Hand & Exposing James

When he does the stone punch, you’ll see chunks of rock on each finger and a faint sigil glow. Here’s what to do:

• Swap to Bowie and shoot the glowing sigil/rock clusters on his fingers. Focus one hand at a time.
• Each destroyed section chips away at the stone. Keep moving sideways to avoid stray projectiles while you work.
• Once you’ve shattered all the rock on that hand, the giant head vanishes briefly and the real wizard appears in the open.
• This is your damage window: instantly swap to Gus or Lezduit and unload everything you’ve got. Soul Hole portals can help redirect shots if he’s partially behind a pillar.

After a short time, he retreats back into the protective head and repeats his patterns. The fight is essentially a loop of surviving his spell spam and adds, then breaking a stone hand to get another burst window.

Survival & Advanced Tips

What finally made this fight click for me wasn’t more damage—it was cleaner positioning:

• Use the pillars intelligently – Duck behind them for shockwaves and triangle volleys, but don’t stay glued there; you need room to dodge adds.
• Farm adds for shields – Don’t ignore ghouls and cherubs. Kill them fast with Creature or area shots to restock your shields.
• Prioritize the stone hand every time – Even mid-chaos, as soon as you see the stone punch, switch focus and start breaking fingers. Every successful break is a big chunk of boss health gone.
• Stay on your skateboard between attacks – Light movement on the board makes weaving between triangles and shockwaves much smoother than pure strafing.

Repeat the cycle—survive, break the stone hand with Bowie, burst him with your highest DPS—until his health is gone and James Stevenson finally goes down.

What Happens Next (and Final Thoughts)

Once the Blue Wizard falls, you’ve completed the James Stevenson bounty. You’ll get the usual bounty rewards, more story fallout from Bowie and the rest of your crew, and you’ll unlock the next main bounty on your board.

The big takeaway from this mission is that brute force doesn’t work—nearly every step, from the sprinklers to the crowd persuasion to the boss, rewards paying attention to mechanics over raw aim. If you’ve made it through this bounty using the strategies above, you’re in great shape for the rest of High on Life 2.

If I could do it after face-planting off those sprinkler rails a dozen times, you can absolutely clear this whole sequence too.