Have you ever read the long series of poems that consists of Dante’s Inferno and thought, “Wow, I wish this was a video game? Or have you ever played Doom and wished that it could be ten times more difficult and twice as fast-paced? Well, believe it or not, there is in fact a video game that matches both of these criterias.
ULTRAKILL is a very fast-paced first-person shooter with graphics inspired by games from the 1990s like Half-Life 1 or the very first Resident Evil, you recognize the type. The style is intentional, however, as the game released its first ever update in September 2020. Updates still release to this day, as the game is still under development, with the second-to-last layer, Fraud, releasing at some point between now and the end of the year (if it hasn’t already released by the time this article gets released.)
The game tells the story of a robot named V1 who descends through the layers of Hell to kill everything it meets. V1 is powered by blood, and all of mankind is dead, so the robot had to find alternatives. Said alternative just so happened to be another realm.
Regardless of the extremely hectic gameplay, the story behind ULTRAKILL is extremely peculiar. Throughout the game, there are hidden nodes of lore, as well as terminal entries of enemies V1 encounters, which allows for a semi-fleshed out timeline. Of course, the lore is not complete, as, like I said before, the game is not completed yet. There are still a total of 6 levels that are yet to be released.
The story of ULTRAKILL, as it is understood now, is a story of war. In this universe, the first World War never ended, and so technology went a very different way than our own. Humans learned to use blood as a fuel source for their machinery, and from that point, it is an arms race of “my machine could beat up your machine”, until they create the Earthmovers. They are the last war machine that humans made, powered by solar energy, billowing massive amounts of smoke, and towering at around 500 meters. People started living on them due to their huge size, and the fact that most of the cities were destroyed by the ongoing war. The smoke emanating from the Earthmovers ended up blocking the atmosphere and consequently blocked their power source. So they stopped moving, ending the Final War. A prototype to defeat the Earthmovers was created, but never used. That prototype’s name was V1.
After that began the new peace, where technology was focused on peacekeeping. Humans created streetcleaners to, well, clean the streets, the rubble and wrecks of robots. The company who made V1 had another attempt at making a machine similar to V1, which they named V2. It was designed for peacekeeping, but like V1, it never got past development and there is only one existing copy of V2 (and V1).
After a while, blood technology proves to be difficult to power, so humanity decides to find alternative power sources to fuel their machines. That is where Hell enters the scene. In ULTRAKILL, Hell itself is sentient, acting in a similar way to the Backrooms, rearranging itself and summoning creatures to its needs. Mankind ends up dying after all those hell expeditions.
Enters V1, who has no more fuel sources on Earth due to all the humans being dead, and so it decides to go to Hell to get more blood. That is where the actual game starts.
The lore I have written out here is merely half of the full story, as Heaven and Hell are also present. However, I will leave that part out of this article, as it is meant to be a review, and not a summary.
I like the way Hakita, the developer of ULTRAKILL, uses Dante’s version of hell with a twist, giving each level a unique identity within its layers. So far, Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Heresy and Violence have been released, leaving Fraud and Treachery to come soon (or not). I can only hope Hakita doesn’t follow in Valve’s footsteps and actually finishes its game.
Gameplay-wise, ULTRAKILL is very fast-paced. And extremely difficult. When I say it is extremely difficult, I do mean it. I have seen friends who are very skilled at first-person shooters struggle against early bosses. And while ULTRAKILL is often compared to Doom for some obvious reasons—both games happening in Hell, killing demons and spreading their gore—I cannot compare the two as I have not played the latter.
ULTRAKILL is an extremely fun game with great characters and great hidden lore, it is very challenging for those who want to, and its weapon selection, while there are quite few, are very original with their interaction. You can in fact shoot a coin in the air, and then shoot a railgun charge into that coin to make it ricochet and deal a lot of extra damage. That is only an example of weapons interacting with each other, but there are a lot more.
Overall, with all the games i have played, ULTRAKILL is one of the good ones, and even though I have played through (almost) all the levels available, I still find myself going back to this game, trying to play it better, discover new secrets, and trying out new strategies to beat bosses. I love ULTRAKILL to the bottom of my heart, and I follow each update thoroughly. ULTRAKILL also has great voice actors, like Gianni Matragano, who voices the Archangel Gabriel and Judge of Hell and final boss of Act I. Overall, this game is definitely in my top 10 games, I would give it a rating of 8 out of 10.
I genuinely hope that whoever reads this gets interested in this absolutely insane game, and understands the love (and frustrations) I have for this game.
