ULTRAKILL Review, The Shooter GameThat Made The Style Fun Again

If most modern first-person shooters are slow, cinematic walks through tightly choreographed action set pieces, ULTRAKILL is a cannonball of pure adrenaline crashing through the wall. Developed by Arsi “Hakita” Patala and published by New Blood Interactive, this game isn’t just a tribute to the past. It’s a reinvention, a brutal and stylish reminder of how fun the genre can be when it stops taking itself so seriously.

Right from the first level, it’s clear that ULTRAKILL is all about speed. Movement is everything. You’re not crouching behind cover, waiting for your health to regenerate. You’re sliding, dashing, wall-jumping, and air-punching enemies into a red mist. There’s no reload button, no time to breathe, and no interest in slowing down. You regain health by soaking yourself in the blood of your enemies, which is as ridiculous and over the top as it sounds, and somehow makes perfect sense within this world.

And that’s the thing, ULTRAKILL knows exactly what it is. It’s a game that leans hard into chaos but never feels clumsy. Every weapon you pick up is more than just a gun. It’s a tool with layers. The shotgun, for example, isn’t just for blasting. You can charge up an explosive shell and punch it mid-air for a fiery shockwave. You can throw coins into the air and shoot them with a revolver for bonus damage. There are no tutorials begging you to do things one way. The game gives you the tools and lets you discover the most creative, stylish ways to tear through your enemies.

It’s not just about winning, it’s about looking good while doing it. Each fight is graded, your performance tracked with a combo meter that rewards stylish play and pushes you to get better. Everything encourages fast thinking, quick reflexes, and bold experimentation. The action feels less like pure violence and more like a form of choreography, where rhythm and momentum matter just as much as accuracy.

Visually, the game goes for a deliberately raw, stripped-down aesthetic. The graphics are rough-edged and minimalist, but paired with modern lighting and smooth animation, they achieve a unique and intense atmosphere. And the soundtrack, it’s thunderous. Industrial, aggressive, and constantly driving you forward. It doesn’t want you to relax. It wants you to stay in the zone, locked into a dance of bullets, blood, and movement.

But what really makes ULTRAKILL stand out is its attitude. It isn’t chasing realism. It doesn’t care about somber narratives or drawn-out exposition. It cares about you, the player, having fun. It trusts you to learn, to experiment, to get messy. In a landscape where many shooters lean into slow pacing and scripted spectacle, ULTRAKILL feels like a wake-up call.

It made shooter games exciting again by throwing out the rules. It brought back the joy of mastering a fast-paced arena, of pulling off a perfect shot mid-air, of turning combat into a creative challenge. It reminds us that sometimes, a game doesn’t need anything more than speed, style, and a whole lot of blood to be brilliant.