ULTRAKILL (PC) (Preview) (2024)

Thank you New Blood Interactive for sending us the review code!

ULTRAKILL is an extremely fast-paced first-person shooter where you are quite the powerhouse of a machine and are required to kill anything and everything you see in order to survive. That’s right, the only way to regain health is to kill something and absorb its blood. There are currently two acts/chapters available for you to play, along with an endless and sandbox mode. There are several secret levels that bring entirely different concepts to the basic gameplay, as well as rewards for completing special challenges that you might not attempt on the first playthrough.

When you boot up the game for the first time, you are given the option to adjust the volume and video settings before you start (which is something that more games need to do), but directly after that, you are dropped right into your bloodthirsty rampage through hell. The second you pick up your starter revolver, you must defend yourself from a few small waves of enemies right off the bat. You are introduced to a few different enemies in the first level, and have to get used to seeing them because they get thrown at you quite often. Any enemy that is difficult to fight at first is almost guaranteed to become a common sight later on. For example, both bosses in the tutorial area are seen several times in the first few levels and you must learn techniques to fight them.

There are only five weapons that you will find during your rampant killing spree, but they are all guaranteed to be used quite a lot. Each weapon has (or will have) 3 variations, and some have secret alternate versions. The thing with these weapons that makes them stand out from a lot of games is that they can all be used with each other in some way or another. For example, one of the variations for the starting revolver is called the marksman, which allows you to toss a coin into the air, allowing you to shoot it so it can ricochet into an enemies’ weak point. Although this is already really cool on its own, you can use it with any hit-scan weapon, meaning that you can use the railcannon, a high-powered laser, to completely obliterate large enemies by tossing a coin and shooting through them.

ULTRAKILL is a very stylish game in the sense that you are encouraged to find unique ways to defeat your many foes who step in your way. There’s actually a style meter that tells you how cool you look whilst you slaughter everything in your path, awarding more style points when you pull off more impressive stunts. It gives you a letter grade as well, ranging from Destructive (D) to Ssad*stic (SS) to ULTRAKILL, at the highest level. It also gives you your overall score at the end of the level.

The endless mode in ULTRAKILL is referred to in-game as the cyber grind. In the cyber grind, you play in a large box that changes shape after you defeat every wave of enemies. It progressively gets more difficult as you battle, and are rewarded with points to spend on new alternate weapons and customization once you die. Every couple of waves, a new powerful enemy gets added into the roster of things that can spawn and try to kill you.

Morally, ULTRAKILL has some issues as it is very clearly aimed towards an audience of teenagers and young adults. It is extremely gory, in case you haven’t gathered that yet, and has a lot of language that is pretty much unavoidable in regular gameplay. For example, on the style meter, the word the developer chose to use for the SSS rank is SSSh*tstorm, which you will most definitely see during your playthrough. Another thing of note is that the recurring antagonist whom you fight multiple times throughout the game is an angel named Gabriel, and the story implies that your goal is something along the lines of killing God.

The songs that plays throughout your battles are all very fitting for the situations you get yourself into, typically being intense and loud while some others are very calm and peaceful. The music is dynamic to what you are doing, which means that it plays a simpler and less rowdy version of a song when you are not engaged in fighting, and adds a breakcore beat when you start killing enemies again. Not only is the music fitting, but I actually really like it and enjoy listening to it outside of playing the game as well.

The graphics seem to be intentionally bad. All textures and models are low-poly, but they do well at what they are trying to do: make it authentic to the art style of an older first-person shooter. The base controls are good, and can also be changed, so any players can adjust to their playing style. In terms or bugs, there are plenty, but for most of them, the developer intentionally left in the game due to how fun they are to use.

This has got to be one of the most intense and fun games I’ve ever played, and you should definitely give it a try if you enjoy games like Doom or Quake. If you enjoy zooming through the air and shooting at anything and everything that gets in your way, ULTRAKILL is your kind of game. If you decide to purchase this game, I believe that it is worth every penny, but do take note that it is very gory and should only be played is you are okay with this. If you are, then you are almost guaranteed to enjoy just about every bit of this game.