2 hours ago
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The Fraud update is out, unless that's also a lie
Do you like architecture that plays tricks on you? Secret rooms in DOOM? The Ashtray Maze in Control? Thinking with Portals? The 5 a.m.? That painting of some books outside the lockers in the British Library that bends queasily as you approach, revealing itself to be a horrible wedge of tomeflesh, projecting outward into our realm like the soul of a dead author? I guess you’ll be playing the new Ultrakill update then.
It introduces the eighth layer of Hell, Fraud, in which nothing you perceive with your eyes can be trusted. A problematic prospect, for a “video” game. Here’s the trailer. I promise you that the play button below isn’t an illusion. Are you an illusion? Blink twice for "Yes".
If you’re yet to sample Ultrakill, it’s a style-scoring FPS that plays like a chainsaw joust between Quake and Devil May Cry. Arsi "Hakita" Patala is the primary developer and New Blood are the publishers. While we’ve never quite written up the early access release, it’s an auld Alice O touchstone, appearing in no less than four Screenshot Saturday Mondays and one What’s Better.
Dirty jankster Graham Smith was also a fan, before he stabbed us in the back with his ridiculous new independent website, built out of farts and hairballs. “I've started to find it difficult to tell the difference between the many mid-'90s shooter revivals,” faithless loser Graham wrote back in 2020. “Yer Amid Evils, DUSKs and so on all wash over me and leave only a refreshed desire to play more Devil Daggers. Ultrakill appeals more than the others however, as it's pairing its Quake-inspired weaponry with movement abilities, combos and the need to recharge your health via getting enemy blood on you. There looks to be a rhythm and flow to it.”
The Fraud update was supposed to be here months ago, but it turns out deceiving the player at every turn whilst still allowing for coherent firefights is pretty hard! As the developers have explained on Steam: “when we embarked on this upside down / inside out journey to create a layer full of lies and non-euclidean portal technology - we underestimated just how much work would go into not only getting all of these things to simply work, but also rewriting every enemy to be able to use the portals, making sound and light and reflections travel through the portals, and so on and so forth.”
New Blood actually hired a new programmer specifically to help with the Fraud update. Oh, to be a fly on the wall for that particular job interview. “Are you great at lying?” “Yes.” “Hold on, are you lying about being great at lying?” “Yes.” “Was that last answer also a lie?” “Yes.” “Ummmmmmmmm. You’re hired.”
Read the full changelog here.
English (US) ·