Beamcutter

BEAMCUTTER
The scrapped Beamcutter seen equipped on the Developer Museum
Primary Fire
Damage	0.15 0.188 (Limb Hit) 0.225 (headshot)
Cooldown	0
Alternate Fire
Damage	0.15 0.188 (Limb Hit) 0.225 (headshot)
Duration	Infinite
Cooldown	None
Damage Modifiers
Terminal Info
Obtained in
Developer Museum

The Beamcutter was a scrapped weapon proposed & created during the development of ULTRAKILL, shown in a video by the official ULTRAKILL twitter following the reveal of the Rocket Launcher. It was a proposed sixth weapon that was cut to avoid bloating the arsenal, many design issues, weapon role overlap and obsolescence, and sustained fire weapons being hard to balance.

Its primary fire shoots a straight beam forward with infinite range & zero delay, shooting directly where the player aims at until the player stops firing. The beam that is fired takes a bit of time to hit an enemy again after already doing so, but this time is greatly reduced if you are moving. The alternate fire places a beam drone, which shoots out a beam similar to the primary fire in the direction the user aimed at. Pressing alternate fire again will remove the drone. The Beamcutter's alt fire can damage the player, dealing 10 damage per second. The beam does not interact with any of the other weapons or their projectiles.

A model of the Beamcutter is present in the Developer Museum as an exhibit on display next to the Black Hole Cannon, with its early blockout model instead of the placeholder Railcannon model used in the original video. The icon of the weapon when equipped is a red question mark, and the model itself lacks both a texture and animation.

Before the Beamcutter display a pedestal with a book can be found, in which Hakita describes the ideas and functions behind the weapon's development before it was scrapped altogether.

BEAMCUTTER

Design by Francis, WIP model by Victoria.

PRIMARY FIRE: Hold to fire beam

SECONDARY FIRE: Place/Remove beam drone

A sixth weapon which was cut early into its creation due to running into many design issues and to avoid arsenal bloat and weapon role overlap.

Based on the lightning gun archetype, it fires a sustained beam that requires the player to track their target to deal continuous damage. It deals reduced damage while standing still to discourage the player from staying still while firing, though in this version you can just move back and forth quickly to fulfill that requirement without making aiming much harder.

Sustained fire weapons are very difficult to make work well with ULTRAKILL's combat system, as proven by how many iterations the Nailgun had to go through before it found its place in the arsenal, and since infinite ammo means every weapon has to have its own niche in order to not make any other weapon obsolete and the Nailgun already filling a similar role, I made the choice to cut it instead of trying to force it into an already full arsenal.

The front of this weapon was supposed to spin when the beam is being fired, but this WIP model has no rigging. No sounds were implemented yet either, so it may seem quite weak in terms of feedback in comparison to the finished weapons. While I do like the weapon in concept, I do think it was the right call to cut it. I prefer a smaller arsenal where every weapon is distinct and useful over a larger arsenal where some of them become obsolete with the introduction of others.

Trivia

• Using the Dual Wield Orb with the Beamcutter allows the player to spawn multiple Beamcutter drones, which do not disappear after the power-up runs out.
• The Beamcutter was originally teased alongside the Rocket Launcher in a Christmas promotional teaser, about a year prior to the release of the Wrath layer. V1 can also be seen using a miniature Ferryman's oar as a spoon.

Media

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  The Beamcutter's exhibit in the Developer Museum
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  Concept arts of the Beamcutter by Francis Xie.
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  Composition and blocking tests by Victoria.
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  The Beamcutter firing at a Stray's corpse
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  The Beamcutter's Drone
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  Multiple Beamcutter drones
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  ULTRAKILL Christmas Promo Art by Francis Xie. [1] The Beamcutter is behind V1.