Ultrakill

In the universe of Ultrakill, God has decided to abandon Heaven, Hell, and the Earth, after discovering humanity has found and is interacting with the Nine Layers of Hell. This results in an angelic Holy Council taking over Heaven in God's stead, damned souls revolting against the Council across multiple layers of Hell, and the extinction of humanity via robotic revolution. The player controls V1, a machine that uses blood as a fuel source.

V1 descends through the layers of Hell, populated by corpses called husks and incorporeal souls, in order to harvest the blood of the various creatures living there. Along the way, V1 encounters demons, undead creatures, other machines also looking for blood, and angels. V1 periodically duels a multitude of bosses including a more advanced rival named V2, extremely powerful "Prime" Souls of great kings such as Minos and Sisyphus responsible for the initial rebellions against the Council, and Archangel Gabriel, the Judge of Hell sent to stop V1 by the Holy Council.

After being defeated by V1 for the first time in Act 1, Gabriel is stripped of his divine status by the Council for a perceived lack of devotion and given 24 hours to kill V1 before his own soul is permanently erased. Gabriel, now titled the "Apostate of Hate", faces V1 at the end of Act 2 but is defeated once again, experiencing an epiphany as to the nature of his faith, and leaving V1 with the promise of another rematch. With only hours left to live, he massacres the Council, proclaiming that "God is dead. The fire is gone." Act 2 concludes with Gabriel displaying the severed head of the last Council member to the people of Heaven. The story is set to be concluded in Act 3.

Ultrakill is a first-person shooter which takes place in a series of levels based on Dante's layers of Hell. The game is divided into a prelude and three acts, with the prelude containing one area (called a layer) with four levels and a major boss level, each proceeding act containing three layers with the first two having three levels and one major boss level, and the third having only one level and a major boss level.

The player has access to 6 weapons: a futuristic revolver, shotgun, nailgun, railcannon, rocket launcher, and their arm, with each one receiving multiple variants, and some receiving alternate forms, such as the sawblade launcher for the nailgun. The player can perform combos or do other stylish actions in order to build a style meter through eight ranks from Destructive to ULTRAKILL and earn style points, similar to games such as Devil May Cry.[3]

A key game mechanic in Ultrakill is the ability for the player to gain health by absorbing the fresh blood of damaged enemies, done by damaging or killing enemies while near them or performing a parry on certain enemy attacks. However, certain other mechanics can prevent or disrupt this, such as enemies covered in sand not dropping blood for the player to absorb, or water diluting blood when an enemy is killed underwater, making said blood easier to pick up, but reducing the amount healed. The recovery of health can also be diminished by taking too much of what is known as "hard damage", temporarily reducing the maximum amount of health the player can recover.

At the end of each level, the player will earn a letter grade rank from D to S in time, enemies killed, and total style points, which are then averaged to give an overall level rank. Completing a level without dying or reloading to a checkpoint, and with an S rank in all 3 categories, will award the player with a P rank. This is the highest possible rank that can be achieved.

Each level of Ultrakill contains hidden collectibles in the form of soul orbs and includes a challenge. Completing the challenge, finding all soul orbs, and getting a P rank, will reward the player by making the level appear gold in the level select menu. Upon completing an entire Act to 100%, the Act screen and icon will all become gold as well.

Ultrakill also has secret levels. These levels can be found on certain layers through secret doors. These levels deviate from the traditional Ultrakill gameplay and opt for a spin or riff on other video games and video game genres, being horror games, puzzle games, dating sims, Crash Bandicoot, and fishing.

Getting a P rank on every level within an act and locating a secret entrance will allow the player to enter the act's Prime Sanctum, with the next sequential Prime Sanctum needing the previous one to be cleared beforehand. Each Prime Sanctum contains a Prime Soul (usually a Greek king), a soul whose sheer willpower and prominence gave them a physical form that does not require a Husk to manifest. These Prime Souls are contained in a type of organic penitentiary, made by angels to imprison these souls. Obtaining a P rank on the Prime Sanctums is not required to progress to the next one. Prime Sanctums contain one or more bosses that are a drastic step up in difficulty compared to the other levels within the act, with the second Prime Sanctum additionally containing a gauntlet of enemies before the bosses.

Ultrakill also features an endless mode called "The Cyber Grind", where the player fights random waves of enemies over a floating arena that transforms after each wave. This mode awards the player points upon completion, which can be used to purchase weapon mods at yellow terminals. The Cyber Grind can be visually altered by the player to display different textures inside the Cyber Grind arena. After clearing a set amount of waves, players can set the Cyber Grind to begin at a designated wave instead of starting over from the beginning (ex. clearing wave 20 allows the player to start at wave 10).

As of 24 April 2023, Ultrakill has received 58,643 Steam reviews, with a score of 98%, making it the 12th highest-rated game on Steam.[4] The game was praised for its movement mechanics and authenticity towards earlier arena shooters and first-person shooters.[3] Christopher Livingston of PC Gamer described Ultrakill as faster and "even more metal than Doom Eternal" and commended the game for its verticality.[5]

On December 8, 2022, Ultrakill added official 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 update, dubbed the "sex update", was met with a new wave of positive reviews.[6]