The setup: a machine in hell

Humanity is gone, and the machines it left behind run on blood. With the living extinct, the only place left to find it is hell itself. You control V1, a small but brutally efficient robot, as it dives through layers of hell loosely based on Dante's Inferno — Limbo, Lust, Gluttony and deeper — each with its own look, enemies and boss fights.

The game was created by solo developer Arsi "Hakita" Patala and published by New Blood Interactive. It entered early access on Steam on September 3, 2020, and has been expanded with new layers and modes since.

How combat works

ULTRAKILL flips the usual shooter rules. There are no health packs to hunt for: V1 heals by getting close to enemies and soaking up the blood they spill. Playing safe at long range slowly drains you, while staying aggressive keeps you alive.

A style meter in the corner grades every fight. Varying your weapons, chaining kills, parrying and moving constantly pushes your rank up from D towards the top rank, ULTRAKILL. Repeating the same attack over and over earns less, so the game pushes you to experiment.

Weapons, arms and parrying

Your arsenal includes a revolver, shotgun, nailgun, railcannon and rocket launcher, and each weapon has alternate versions with their own tricks — like tossing a coin into the air and shooting it to ricochet a shot into an enemy.

V1's arms are weapons too. A well-timed punch parries enemy projectiles and sends them back, and a successful parry also restores health. Learning to parry is the single biggest step from surviving to dominating.

Movement is everything

Standing still gets you killed. V1 can dash (limited by a stamina bar that refills quickly), slide along the ground, jump off walls and slam straight down from mid-air. Combining a slide into a jump carries your speed, which is how experienced players cross whole arenas in a second.