| Ultrakill | |
| Developer: | Arsi "Hakita" Patala |
| Publisher: | New Blood Interactive |
| Producer: | Dave Oshry |
| Designer: | Arsi "Hakita" Patala |
| Platforms: | Microsoft Windows |
| Released: | 3 September 2020 (early access) |
| Genre: | First-person shooter |
| Modes: | Single-player |
Ultrakill is a first-person shooter video game developed by Arsi "Hakita" Patala and published by New Blood Interactive. It was released on Steam through Early Access for Microsoft Windows on 3 September 2020.[1] The game uses retro-style graphics reminiscent of video games from the early PlayStation consoles and combines modern movement mechanics like those of Titanfall and Doom Eternal with gameplay elements from action games like Devil May Cry.
Ultrakill is a fast-paced first-person shooter with an emphasis on movement and stylish techniques. The player must make their way through an interpretation of Dante's layers of Hell, with three acts each made up of three layers being divided into multiple levels.
The player battles enemies using an arsenal of weapons, having a primary and alternate attack, and various robotic arms.[2] These have unique interactions with each other, invoking the combination attacks of games like Devil May Cry. Many of the advanced techniques in the game are a result of combining various elements of the player's arsenal. To encourage aggressive gameplay, the player can heal by absorbing the blood of enemies through close-range combat or heal through parrying enemy attacks. The player's performance is judged by a "style meter", similar to games such as Devil May Cry.[3] The style meter rewards the player for performing advanced and flashy moves, as well as encouraging aerial maneuvering and quickly swapping between weapons.
At the end of each level, the player's style ranking is combined with time taken and number of kills to determine a letter grade for that run. Achieving an S rank in all three categories without dying throughout that run will earn the player a P (Perfect) rank, the highest possible rank for a level.
In addition to the main campaign, Ultrakill provides various secret levels[4] parodying other video game genres. The game has an endless survival mode called "The Cyber Grind" where players can compete against other players' high scores, and a sandbox mode in which the player can spawn enemies and various objects.
In the future, humanity has gone extinct from unknown causes after a centuries-long period of warfare known as the Final War and a second shorter period known as the New Peace. The Final War led to the invention of blood-powered machines as mostly soldiers and an arms race. With too much destruction caused, a climate catastrophe led to the Sun being blotted out, ending the war. Humans during the New Peace started expeditions into Hell, until their eventual extinction.
Before the events of the game, God had disappeared, leaving Heaven without a ruler. Due to the exhaustion of blood sources on Earth, several blood-fueled machines, among them the player character, a prototype machine known as V1, have descended into Hell in search of blood. Throughout its journey, V1 fights husks (physical manifestations of damned souls), demons, angels, and competing machines while traveling further down the layers of Hell. In the Limbo layer, V1 fights V2, another V prototype built with stronger plating for function in the New Peace, though V2 escapes. After defeating the husk of King Minos in the Lust layer, the first act culminates in a fight in Gluttony against the archangel Gabriel, the newly appointed Judge of Hell. Following his defeat at the hands of V1, the council of Heaven, who have begun to rule Heaven in God's absence, declare Gabriel a traitor and strip him of his holy light, leaving him with 24 hours to live to destroy V1.
V1 continues its descent into Hell, having a rematch with V2 in the Greed layer that ends in V2's death, and killing the Leviathan in the Wrath layer. Gabriel returns at the end of the second act in the Heresy layer, enraged due to his previous loss. Gabriel is defeated again, but is relieved rather than enraged, as V1 is the first adversary to present him with a real challenge. After the battle, he reflects on his losses and realizes the council of Heaven has lost their way in the absence of God and has been using him to carry out their own agendas. He vows to act on his own terms, and proceeds to execute the members of the council and displays one of their severed heads to the citizens of Heaven.
V1 continues its massacre and travels to the Violence layer, where it defeats the Minotaur and a 1000-THR (nicknamed Earthmover), a type of giant war machine from the Final War.
Ultrakill was praised for its movement mechanics and authenticity towards earlier arena shooters and first-person shooters. Christopher Livingston of PC Gamer described Ultrakill as faster and "even more metal than Doom Eternal" and commended the game for its verticality.[5] It was also described as "[moving] like turbo Doom Eternal", in another PC Gamer article by Dominic Tarason, who noted that it "looks like a PSX game".[6] It was also reviewed by Peter Glasgowski of TheGamer, who wrote that "...Ultrakill ticked off every box for me."[7] On May 15, 2024, the game had achieved 100,000 Steam reviews with a 98% approval rating.[8]
On 8 December 2022, Ultrakill gained official controller rumble support, under the guise of being sex toy support. Its developer released an official mod called UKbutt, adding support for a plugin called buttplug.io. The mod was created by Ultrakill programmer PITR and buttplug.io lead Kyle "qDot" Machulis.[9] New Blood CEO Dave Oshry remarked that "at no point when originally testing or discussing the game with Hakita or anyone at [New Blood] were any of us like 'they're gonna want sex'." The mod was met with a wave of positive user reviews.[10]