Ultrakill

ULTRAKILL
Developer(s)	Arsi "Hakita" Patala
Publisher(s)	New Blood Interactive
Producer(s)	Dave Oshry
Designer(s)	Arsi "Hakita" Patala
Programmer(s)	Arsi "Hakita" Patala PITR
Artist(s)	Andrei Mishchenko Francis Xie Victoria Holland
Writer(s)	Arsi "Hakita" Patala Jacob H.H.R.
Composer(s)	Arsi "Hakita" Patala meganeko Keygen Church Health
Engine	Unity
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Release	3 September 2020 (early access)
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	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. The game uses retro-style graphics reminiscent of video games from the PlayStation and combines the modern movement mechanics like those of Titanfall and Doom Eternal with gameplay elements from spectacle fighter games like Devil May Cry.

Gameplay

Ultrakill is a fast-paced first-person shooter with an emphasis on deliberate movement and stylish techniques. The player must quickly make their way through an interpretation of Dante's layers of Hell, with 3 acts each made up of 3 layers being divided into multiple levels.

The player battles enemies using an arsenal of weapons and various robotic arms. 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 style meter (to the right) dictates how stylishly the player defeats enemies.

Throughout the game, the player's performance is judged by a "style meter", similar to games such as Devil May Cry. 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 3 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 parodying other video game genres, an endless survival mode called "The Cyber Grind", and a sandbox mode in which the player can spawn enemies and various objects.

Plot

In the future, humanity has gone extinct from unknown causes after a centuries-long period of robotic warfare known as the Final War, and a second shorter period known as the New Peace. The Final War lead to the invention of blood powered machines as mostly soldiers, but there exist a few machines used for other purposes. Humans during the New Peace started the Hell Expeditions, until their eventual extinction. Sometime long 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. V1 also fights the second V prototype V2, a version of V1 that lacks the prototype rapid blood-absorption ability of V1, instead utilizing advanced armor plating. V2 serves as the primary antagonist in the Limbo layer, and a secondary antagonist in the Greed layer, where he is destroyed. After defeating the giant animated corpse 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.

V1 continues its descent into Hell, doing battle with various enemies along the way, including the Leviathan in the Wrath layer. Gabriel, now the Apostate of Hate, returns at the end of the second act in the Heresy layer, enraged due to his previous loss. Gabriel is once again defeated but is euphoric 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 brandishes one of their decapitated heads to the citizens of Heaven.

Ultrakill's plot does not follow the mythos of one specific Abrahamic religion. A notable mention includes the exclusion of Jesus Christ.

Reception

The game 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. 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". It was also reviewed by Peter Glasgowski of TheGamer, who wrote that "...Ultrakill ticked off every box for me."

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. 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.