ULTRAKILL First Impressions
Today is July 1st, 2025, officially kicking off the second half of the calendar year!
Since the start of the summer I've wanted to tackle some entries from my backlog. Now of course, due to the Steam Sale, it is probably one of the worst times to do so, since my library just keeps growing and, in turn, so does my backlog.
Anyways, I noticed that now with my new blog, it might be a good idea to start documenting some of the games I play in my backlog! Kind of as a mark of "Yes! I finally did play this game!".
Now, naturally, I did get a few games literally today, and I decided that it might actually be a good idea to start with one of those! And so, to kick off this whole backlog saga, I played ULTRAKILL, an early access FPS that first released in 2020.
One of my best friends is absolutely obsessed with this game (honestly she's the reason why I got it lol) and so I already had a decent idea of what it could be like!
A fast-paced shooter which focuses on style points more than anything, and has a visual style reminiscent of early PS1 games or — in my opinion — closer to mid 90s PC games, such as Quake 2 (which is what I connected it the most with due to all the brown in the initial stages).
I wasn't exactly aware of how fast-paced it would be, though. I haven't really played much of that type of game, and most of my experience with first person games from the era this was inspired were come from pretty much the exact opposite of this. From the slow stealthy Thief series, to the survival horror of System Shock 2, and the RPG elements of Deus Ex, I didn't have a good idea of what to really expect.
I played the game for about an hour today, finishing the first five stages, and I really liked it! Though it's definitely something I have to get more used to, as it was a lot faster than even I originally expected. Again, I don't think connecting it even just a little with those relatively slower titles helped.
While playing I joked to my friend about how this is basically the anti-Half-Life 1, whose tagline was "Run. Think. Shoot. Live.", and I said that I only did precisely two of those things.
As I kept playing it, though, I noticed that this was actually much closer to another game which I already played and really loved, Neon White! Which is a parkour speedrun shooter where you have to run through levels as fast as possible while killing all the enemies. Now the only real similarities with the games is the fact that they're fast and you shoot at things, but even just having that framework made me click with it a lot more! Yes I had to shoot at things, but I should use the move set of the game to its fullest!
The game has very fast movement, as I said, with extremely high jumping, multiple dashing features, a crouch which is actually very fast, and a super satisfying ground pound!
There is a bit of exploration to this game as well, as there are secrets in each stage! I'm pretty sure I only found one in the whole thing, but it is definitely something I can do more of later!
In the end I really liked the bit of the game I played! And it is definitely something I am looking forward to playing more and experimenting with! To be fully honest, I don't know if this is the type of game I'll be able to play for long sessions, since it is quite overwhelming at times, it's like my brain goes on autopilot when I play it.
But regardless, I do really like ULTRAKILL! And I am very glad that I was able to give it a proper go! Its gameplay is still extremely fun and cathartic, the controls are extremely satisfying, its visuals and design are great, and I am sure I'll have a lot of fun finding all the secrets and things!
Also shoutout to the developers for recreating GMod's gm_construct map for its Sandbox mode! I absolutely love that detail.
