ULTRAKILL Beginner Tips - Movement, Style, and Survival

ULTRAKILL is a single-player retro first-person shooter developed by Arsi “Hakita” Patala and published by New Blood Interactive. It rewards fast movement, aggressive healing, parry awareness, weapon variety, and stylish play more than cautious corner shooting.

Content warning: Steam’s mature-content note says ULTRAKILL contains explicit violence and gore. This guide keeps descriptions non-graphic and focused on gameplay choices.

This is a spoiler-light beginner guide for learning the campaign systems. It is not a walkthrough, boss guide, P-rank route, all-secrets guide, weapon-stat sheet, speedrun guide, or current Cyber Grind meta guide. Steam still marks ULTRAKILL as Early Access, with the final full-release scope not complete.

Essential Tips

1. Move First, Aim Second

Standing still makes every system worse.

ULTRAKILL expects you to dash, jump, slide, use walls, and stay airborne when a room opens up. You do not need advanced movement tech to start. You do need the habit of leaving bad ground before enemies box you in.

2. Heal by Entering the Fight

Distance can keep you alive briefly, but close pressure gets health back.

The core healing loop is aggressive. Close-range attacks can restore health, and parries can restore health up to the current Hard Damage limit. If you are hurt, do not only backpedal and wait. Look for a safe way to re-enter, hit something, or parry a clear cue.

3. Treat Hard Damage as a Warning

Repeated hits shrink your recovery window.

On Standard and higher, damage can temporarily limit how much health you can heal back. Higher style helps that limit recover faster, so the answer is not just “find more health.” The answer is usually cleaner movement, faster kills, and less panic damage.

4. Learn Parry Cues Early

A good parry is defense, healing, stamina, and style at once.

Many parryable attacks use clear visual and audio cues. Learn those cues in ordinary fights before you try harder difficulties or optional challenges. If a cue is confusing, practice the timing in a lower-pressure level instead of waiting until a late fight demands it.

5. Use More Than One Weapon

Weapon variety is part of survival, not only scoring.

Weapons have variants and alternate uses, and the style system rewards variety through freshness. For a first run, the simple goal is to stop relying on one comfortable answer for every enemy. Swap when range, crowd pressure, or ammo rhythm changes.

6. Spend Points Around Habits You Actually Use

A variant only helps if it fits into your hands.

Terminals let you buy weapon variants after you have the base weapon. Do not buy just to fill a menu. Spend on tools you will practice, then use normal levels to build muscle memory before judging the choice.

7. Finish Levels Before Chasing Perfect Runs

A first clear teaches more than repeated restart loops.

ULTRAKILL ranks time, kills, style, and restarts, but perfect ranks are cleanup goals. On a first route, clear the level, learn enemy pressure, find broad secrets naturally, and return later for challenge objectives or strict rank work.

8. Use Difficulty Honestly

Standard is the baseline, not a requirement.

The official wiki frames Standard as intended for most new players, but Harmless and Lenient exist for learning, and Violent or Brutal exist for players who want more pressure. Change difficulty when the current setting stops teaching and starts turning every room into a wall.

9. Check Assists Before You Need Them

Visibility and learning tools can make the game more readable.

Minor assists such as aim help or enemy visibility can help new players learn without the same rank consequences as major assists. Major assists can affect how runs are recorded or displayed, so check the menu warning if you care about saved ranks or Cyber Grind results.

10. Keep Secrets Spoiler-Light at First

The first goal is learning the language of the levels.

ULTRAKILL hides secret levels, optional objectives, orbs, alternate gear, and other extras. Notice odd rooms and side paths, but avoid turning your first playthrough into a checklist. Exact secret routes and unlocks are better handled in a confirmed secrets guide.

Movement and Survival

Situation	Beginner Response	Why It Helps
Open arena starts	Move before settling your aim	Enemy pressure builds quickly
Projectiles fill the room	Dash, jump, or slide through a safer line	Stamina is a survival resource
You take several hits	Stop trading damage and rebuild style safely	Hard Damage can block full healing
You see a clear parry cue	Time the parry instead of only dodging	Parry can restore health and stamina
You are low and far away	Approach through cover or movement, then heal by attacking	Health recovery rewards aggression
You keep falling or getting pinned	Slow down and practice basic jumps, dashes, and wall movement	Clean movement beats panic inputs

Do not try to learn every advanced movement interaction at once. Start with reliable dashes, jumps, slides, and wall recovery. Once those feel normal, faster routes and flashier movement become easier to understand.

Weapons and Style

Habit	What to Do	What to Avoid
Weapon swapping	Rotate tools when range or pressure changes	Holding one favorite weapon through every fight
Variant practice	Test a new variant in normal rooms	Buying a variant and forgetting it exists
Alternate fire	Use it deliberately when the window is clear	Burning cooldowns just because they are ready
Style building	Stay mobile and vary attacks	Playing from one static angle
Points	Spend on options you will practice	Treating the Terminal like a shopping checklist
Optional tech	Save advanced weapon interactions for later	Trying to copy expert clips before learning the base loop

The style meter is not only a score toy. It feeds survival because higher style helps Hard Damage recover faster. When you are struggling, ask whether you are being too passive, using too narrow a weapon set, or fighting from the same spot too long.

Difficulty and Assists

Option Type	Beginner Use
Harmless / Lenient	Learn movement, parry cues, and room flow with less pressure
Standard	Baseline first-run choice for most new players
Violent	Extra pressure once Standard feels controlled
Brutal	Experienced-player setting; expect harsher behavior and less room for mistakes
Minor Assists	Improve readability or aim while learning
Major Assists	Use deliberately after checking rank and record implications

Changing difficulty is better than learning bad habits. If you only survive by hiding, emptying one weapon, or ignoring parries, lower the pressure long enough to practice the actual combat loop.

Secrets and Current Scope

ULTRAKILL is still an Early Access game on Steam. The current campaign scope includes the completed Prelude, Acts I and II, and later Act III layers, but the full third act and final feature set are not finished according to Steam’s Early Access text.

For a beginner route, use this boundary:

Find	First-Run Response
Soul Orb or side room	Grab it if obvious, mark the idea mentally if not
Locked or strange path	Leave it for cleanup unless the level is clearly teaching it
Challenge objective	Try it after your first clear
Secret exit hint	Save exact solving for a spoiler guide
Alternate weapon clue	Note it, but do not look up full unlock steps immediately
P-rank temptation	Return after you know the level, enemies, and weapon flow
Cyber Grind	Treat it as practice after campaign basics, not the first lesson

Because the game is still changing, exact counts, secret routes, weapon unlocks, difficulty behavior, and meta advice should be refreshed against the installed build before following a strict route.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

1. Do not stand still while shooting - Movement is a core defensive layer.

2. Do not backpedal forever at low health - You need controlled aggression to recover.

3. Do not ignore parry cues - Clear parries can restore health, stamina, and momentum.

4. Do not spend an entire level on one weapon - Variety helps both combat coverage and style.

5. Do not buy variants and leave them unused - Practice new tools before judging them.

6. Do not restart every room for perfect ranks on a first clear - Learn the level first, then clean it up.

7. Do not chase secret routes during active combat - Stabilize the room, then explore.

8. Do not enable major assists without checking the warning - Some run records and ranks can be affected.

9. Do not jump straight into high difficulties for pride - Raise pressure after your base movement, parries, and swaps are stable.

Summary

Category	Top Tip
Movement	Dash, jump, slide, and reposition before enemies trap you
Healing	Re-enter safely and attack close instead of waiting at range
Hard Damage	Avoid repeated hits and rebuild style to recover faster
Parry	Learn cues early because parries restore health and stamina
Weapons	Rotate tools and practice variants you actually buy
Style	Treat score as survival feedback, not only bragging rights
Difficulty	Use Standard as baseline and adjust when learning stalls
Secrets	Keep first-run exploration broad and save exact routes for later
Current Scope	Refresh Early Access layer, weapon, secret, and platform claims before relying on it