ULTRAKILL (2020) is a fast-paced ultraviolent old school first-person shooter. you are V1, a lethal combat machine fueled by blood who has ventured into the depths of hell after the extinction of humanity to seek out life sustaining blood sources.

gameplay is heavily movement-focused and relies on a players ability to dodge, manage an arsenal, and occasionally get in close quarters with aggressive combat, as the only form of healing is to shower V1 in the blood of enemies. it's gameplay is reminiscent of boomer shooters such as DOOM and QUAKE, and each level sees you delving deeper into a dante's inferno inspired hell. it also contains a P-RANK system that encourages players to return to older levels in order to meet certain requirements to perfect them - which will, once completed, unlock additional secret levels.

as of the current time of writing, ULTRAKILL is still in early access stages, with only two more levels to go! a recent revamp and graphics overhaul as of FEB 2025 is what inspired me to create this shrine, since i love the game so much :)


i love any game that's willing to drop me in a room with zero instructions and expect me to figure it out, but there is something about ULTRAKILL that keeps me coming back for more. the ps1-core graphics, the gratutious viscera, the high octane fast paced intensity of every level; it's fantastic. and that's not even to mention the music, the hidden lore, the secrets to be found, and the sheer joy of returning to a level you struggled with after unlocking a new weapon and movement tech. AND! i get to play as a silly little robot! there's a dating sim IN the game! you can fish! there are puzzles! it's got it all.

one of my favourite parts about ULTRAKILL is simply figuring things out. the game in no way whatsoever holds your hand; the very first level is you, a dark room, and a pistol. the second you pick up the gun, it all kicks off. you can parry almost anything - including your own shotgun shells! there are certain ways you can move faster, you can spring yourself off walls and slam into enemies to send them flying, you can use your guns to boost you over vast distances and none of it is ever mentioned; you just figure it out as you go, and that is what i enjoy the most about it.

currently, i am making my way through P-RANKING the entire game on VIOLENT mode! it's just one step up from the normal difficulty, but just enough to be a challenge. you can see my progress on the left there.

my fav weapons <333 shotgun combat in this game is SO much fun

THOUGHTS ABOUT VIOLENCE AND THE EARTHMOVER

anyone who's listened to me talk about ULTRAKILL for more than 30 seconds will know that my favourite part of the game is the VIOLENCE layer & the earthmovers. "this is the only way it could have ended." "you were beautiful, outstretched like antennas to heaven." these quotes come from a book found on board the earthmover that V1 fights in 7-4. to understand my love for them, you must understand their lore.

ULTRAKILL takes place in a post-humanity world. mankind is dead. they made machines to win wars and in doing so, they created machines to perpetuate wars. the earthmovers were exactly this; a behemoth machine built to house cities on their backs, protecting the dregs of humanity from the other dregs of humanity, until the barren landscape was just surviors clinging to the backs of machines that senselessly shoot at each other until failure. "A MACHINE BUILD TO END WAR IS ALWAYS A MACHINE BUILT TO CONTINUE WAR".

VIOLENCE is the loudest level of ULTRAKILL, in my opinion. sure, the screams, the music, the splattering of machines is present throughout the entire game, but there's no sense of humanity to any of that. it's demons and filth and machines, until you reach VIOLENCE. in 7-2, you emerge into a black and white outdoor landscape and you are greeted with the sounds of a battlefield. gunfire peppers the sky, bright flashes of light illuminate the distant earthmovers firing at each other from a distance. your enemies are tanks, heavily armoured. you are directly in the middle of war; a purely human creation, a very human level. gravestones litter the landscape if you take some time to venture off the intended path. it's so human.

that's why, to me, it was so incredible coming up against the earthmover for the first time. you load into the level and it peers down at you from the sky, rears back and fires a missile at another distant earthmover and this is when you take your chance to get on board this thing and KILL it. from the inside.

it's during this fight, if you wander off, that you find the book, alongside some other sprinkles and hints of lore. what you'll learn is that V1's entire purpose - the point of it's creation - was to take down these earthmovers. it's agile, small, lithe. it can get into it's internal mechanisms and take it down from the inside and get out before it shuts down and implodes. this fight just feels so right because you use EVERYTHING you have learned to kill the earthmover. it takes a whole arsenal, every movement you know, all the skills and tricks you've come up with along the way. it is a phenomonally designed level that really makes you feel every inch of what V1 was really made for. "THIS IS THE ONLY WAY IT COULD HAVE ENDED," the book says. you have fulfilled your destiny even in hell. what does a machine do once it has outlived its programming?
u/NecroLyght on reddit

* 0-1: INTO THE FIRE
the first level and one i love very much, just because that music kicking in as soon as you collect the pistol is brilliant, and this level's track is really good.

* 1-4: CLAIR DE LUNE
this is your introduction to V2, your successor. it's V1, but red, and mimics your exact move set during the fight, which i just thought was so cool. the ai responds to your playstyle - backing off if you're aggressive, pushing in if you're defensive. it can even ping your own coin from your marksman pistol if you're not fast enough. i just thought this was an awesome mechanic, and V2's fight music is fantastic.

* 2-4: COURT OF THE CORPSE KING
the challenge for this level is "parry a punch". this was a valuable lesson in understanding exactly how loose ULTRAKILL's definition of a 'projectile' is. great level, awesome design, very fun fight.

* 3-2: IN THE FLESH
gabriel my sweet little meow meow, my pathetic babygirl, my eeby little skrinkle. this is a great level on an aesthetics sense - fleshy rooms, viscera, giant eyeballs - and a boss fight that introduces you to gabriel, my beloved little angel who just hates V1 so so much

* 5-4: LEVIATHAN
this one is just really fun and a nice change from the routine of the last few levels. big fishy!

* 7-4: ...LIKE ANTENNAS TO HEAVEN
ohhhh 1000-thr "earthmover" how i love you so. i could talk about this boss fight and the earthmover itself for hours if you let me; this fight was so delightful to me because throughout the entire violence layer, you see the earthmovers fighting in the distance. to be faced with one head on and see how massive it truly is, and then realise you're expected to fight this thing?? my god. there's some lore scattered throughout this level that culminates in one of my favourite pieces of text from the game - this note found on the earthmover itself.