Lore

Terminology.png

See also: Terminal, Characters

[EVERYTHING IN THIS PAGE IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE DUE TO UPDATES.]

THIS PAGE IS NOT LISTED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER.

ULTRAKILL's lore is what ties the game's story, environments and gameplay together, creating a world around what the player experiences throughout the game. Not much is known for sure, and the order of which things happen is not clear. As more information is found, this page will be updated accordingly. (It is possible that future updates could change the lore we know, as the game is still in development.)

Bullet points indicate speculation or additional details.

The following sections are in chronological order unless otherwise stated.

Earth Events

The Final War

In the early 20th century, for various reasons, the nations of Earth became locked in an era of trench warfare. This event would be named the "Final War." This event is believed to fork itself from World War 1 as we know it in the real world. Early in the war, the first machines to be deployed in wide-scale conflict were known as the Guttermen, built by the Russian Empire, one of the first successful experiments in using blood as a fuel source. Guttermen were capable of very efficiently clearing out trenches, and their creation single-handedly ended the trench phase of the Final War. This resulted in retaliation from opposing forces in the form of the Guttertank made by the German Empire, spiraling the conflict into a global arms race between the world's industrial powers. Every machine created for use in the Final War was designed to counter the last.

As machines began to quickly dominate the battlefield, human soldiers became obsolete. While at first the soldiers celebrated coming home, they soon found that the war left little in its wake. The civilians off the frontlines were frequently wrought with shortages as most resources were poured into further war machine development. The destruction they caused meant nowhere was safe, with home being just another battlefield.

Later during the Final War, the Earthmovers would bring the Final War into its final era. They were the pinnacle of the arms race, so massive that they required not only blood but also solar power. So powerful that one could destroy an entire city by itself. They sometimes acted as frontlines for smaller machines to continue fighting from. The surface had become so hostile to all forms of life that the remaining survivors had to settle down on the backs of the Earthmovers. It is implied that V1 began development as a machine designed specifically to counter the Earthmovers.

As a result of the Final War, soot, ash, and debris clouded the skies, blanketing the Earth in a permanent darkness that became known as the "Long Night" climate catastrophe. Without solar power, the Earthmovers could not sustain themselves and began to shut down one by one.

As war became dependent on Earthmovers, their death had made any wide-scale conflict impossible. The Final War drew to a close after more than 200 years of war without reason with complete silence. Mankind was obligated to cooperate to resolve the Long Night's effects.

The New Peace

After more than two centuries of fighting, the Final War had finally concluded. Humanity slowly realized their mistake and cooperated to solve the Long Night climate catastrophe. Machines such as the Streetcleaners were developed to assist in cleaning the air.

With the end of the Final War, V1 had no purpose and its development was abandoned. V2 was developed for use as a peacekeeper in order to make up for the production cost of V1. The demand was low, however, so only one V2 model was made in the form of a prototype. Drones were also developed during this era.

The Hell Exploration And Excavation Project

During the New Peace, the entrance to Hell was discovered. A mining complex meant to extract and process minerals was built around it, old war machines were repurposed to explore it, and many inventions were made to aid in this process, such as the transportation of physical material via the elevator room terminals. Terminals were able to convert physical matter into radio signals. This signal could then be picked up by another terminal and be rebuilt into an object. However, this process took a very long time. The only successful attempt of teleportation between the surface of the Earth and Hell was a test which used a 78rpm vinyl record of the single Were you Foolin' of the Russ Morgan Orchestra. The connection between the surface and these terminals was cut before another transfer attempt was made.

After awhile, workers noticed doors closing on their own, despite no obvious glitches. They noticed machine parts would go missing and vanish. One worker came to the conclusion that Hell was sapient. A message was quickly sent by the worker, but Hell corrupted the final message.

The hell exploration project and facility were soon abandoned, either due to fear of Hell's sentience, the extinction of humanity, or both.

Death of Mankind

Eventually, humankind became extinct. It is unknown how, when, or why it happened. The influx of new souls in Hell was noted to be very quick and widespread -- enough to turn Wrath's River Styx into an ocean, so it is assumed this extinction was swift across the entire globe.

The Hell Invasion

After the death of humanity, blood on the surface quickly became a scarcity. The remaining machines began killing each other for their blood with others invading Hell to take it from the entities that lived there. As a result of this invasion, the layers of Hell are steadily becoming more sparse in life.

Biblical Events

Disappearance of God and Chaos in Heaven

Around the start of the Final War, God disappeared, resulting in panic and chaos in Heaven. All angels were recalled back to Heaven and left Hell unsupervised. This sparked Hell undergoing numerous changes in each of the layers simultaneously.

The Lust Renaissance

With the angels missing as a result of God's disappearance, the Judge of Hell, Minos, set out to reform the Lust layer; he did not believe people should be punished for the simple act of loving another. This Renaissance completely transformed Lust from a windswept wasteland to a thriving city, ushering in a time of peace, civilization, and prosperity with Minos as their benevolent king.

The Greed Insurrection

The angels' abandonment left not just Lust but also Greed without surveillance from the angels. Like Minos, King Sisyphus took advantage of this. While Minos rallied the husks and underwent a peaceful revolution, Sisyphus trained the husks and led a militant insurrection to take over the layer by force before subverting Heaven's tyrannical rule entirely. Sisyphus and his army killed the demons of the layer keeping them under submission and trained them to fight against the angels in anticipation of their return.

Retaking Hell

In Heaven, a holy council was eventually established by the angels in God's place, utilizing force and fear to rule, and ruled based on their own interpretations of God's will.

They soon learned of the many changes in Hell designed to remove the punishment the angels believed they deserved. Outraged, they ordered the archangel Gabriel to lead an army to Hell to restore it to its proper suffering.

Gabriel first encountered King Minos in Lust amongst a peaceful cityscape. Minos attempted to reason with Gabriel but the archangel slew the king without a thought. Weeping and grieving over the death of their great king, the citizens watched as Gabriel gloated on his divine mission in the glory of God. Gabriel then inherited the title of the Judge of Hell from the king he slew.

Minos's snakes, who were beside him as the Judge and king, were turned into grotesque parasites and commandeered their previous master's corpse. The Corpse, controlled by the snakes, started to stomp and crush the now-decrepit city, destroying what Minos and the damned of the Lust layer had worked hard to achieve. The husks were presumably forced out of their homes to endure the winds once again.

Gabriel continued through the layers and entered Greed, running into Sisyphus and his insurrectionists. A war of biblical proportions began. Gabriel noticed that the insurrectionists idolized Sisyphus to a fault and took advantage of it. Gabriel unsheathed his twin swords and decapitated a weakened Sisyphus, cutting his warriors off from his radiance and causing a huge drop in morale, leading to the downfall of the rebellion. The body of Sisyphus was entombed inside a large chamber inside a massive pyramid, decaying, headless, and held up by outstretched arms.

The Hell Invasion

After a period of routine , machines from the surface began pouring in from the entrance to Hell. As these machines used blood as fuel and were developed for combat, they began slaughtering the denizens of Hell without remorse. Gabriel attempted to repel the machines, but the sheer number caused him to be pushed back layer by layer.

Game Events

The Hell Invasion

The Invasion was in effect before V1's entry into Hell and is currently ongoing. The machines spotted throughout the layer are there as a result of searching for blood to survive, with V1 being no exception. V1 is particularly special due to its sheer combat prowess. Despite its fragility, its method of refueling on contact and mobility makes V1 exceptionally lethal. V1 is able to kill many notable and biblical figures such as the Corpse of King Minos and the Leviathan and even defeat the archangel Gabriel.

By the time V1 enters the layer of Heresy, Gabriel notes that all living beings in layers one and two (Limbo and Lust) are dead with layer three (Gluttony) currently in progress of dying. It is unknown if V1 is a major reason for this.

It is expected that all living creatures in the entirety of Hell are doomed to die, ushering in an era of total extinction.

Hell and Its Layers

Hell is a multi-dimensional, always-changing megastructure of spaces created by God to punish sinners. Though normal elements such as metals can be found in Hell, there are two unique substances in it: Hell Energy and Hell Mass. Hell Energy usually appears as glowing red, yellow or blue orbs and can be controlled by husks, demons and even machines (green orbs are created by the Very Cancerous Rodent, but the canonicity of such a creature is disputed). Hell Mass appears as a flesh-like material that creates demons when it coagulates inside a suitable stone shell. The way in which the creation of demons happens, how Hell Mass is created, or if it can be controlled is unknown, though it is implied it is related to the flesh and torture of husks. The requirements for a suitable stone shell are not particularly strict, as the bodies of the sullen in Wrath were able to mix with Hell Mass to create the Leviathan, and can be small enough to fit within the Idol.

Hell was considered to be sentient by humans due to some odd events that were observed in the mining facilities, such as doors locking themselves, enemies teleporting into rooms with workers, tools and materials disappearing, and husks augmented by human-like machinery. This led to the belief that Hell is a sentient super-organism that tortures people for its own entertainment.

Though Hell cannot speak directly, it can corrupt data or books, changing or adding text to its words. Hell usually "speaks" with all caps, in red text, or with spaces between the letters, though exceptions are common. Such examples are the end text of a message claiming Hell's sentience, a book in an alleyway on an Earthmover, and a screen in P-2. An easy way to tell if Hell is speaking is to notice a large shift in context or meaning in a given text, often implying a tone of malicious intent.

Additionally, it is also likely that Hell has some form of rapport with the Terminals. The Minotaur's data seemingly being censored and corrupted by a red tint, and P-2's tip teasing the reader. Terminals can also be found in unexpected locations outside of elevators, such as before boss fights, leading to believe Hell might have moved Terminals away from their original location.

Prelude

Not yet in Hell proper, the Prelude occurs in a human-made mining facility that excavates minerals and rocks from within Hell. It is further inside, surrounded by a river of lava, where the gates of Hell stand.

This facility has many crushers and pistons, spinning fans and shredders, and steam pipes. After humanity's extinction, pools and streams of blood flooded the conveyors where the minerals used to be transported.

After Hell's discovery, the organisms of Hell slowly leaked into the surface world with husks and demons able to escape and settle into the facility while the machines of the surface pass through the facility to get inside Hell.

V1 encounters Filth, Strays, Schisms, Malicious Faces, and Cerberi inside here. The original Swordsmachine is also killed here by V1, and Something Wicked is found in a long-abandoned section of the factory. It is also where V1 finds the Piercer revolver and the Core Eject Shotgun.

Limbo

Punishment: total isolation in a false world

Souls who were virtuous but didn't accept Christ or were unbaptized reside in the hollow realm of Limbo. Here, sinners live in an environment evoking the paradise of Heaven but delivered by illusions and mockeries. The walls and water are VCR screens that buzz when close, the grass and trees are fake and poorly designed, the singing of birds comes from hidden speakers, and the music in the background has a peaceful quality but instead only enhances the psychological torment of their empty and tantalizing abode.

Limbo has a variety of environments and structures, such as green meadows, stone castles, rivers and waterfalls, and mansions.

This is where V1 encounters Drones, Streetcleaners, a Hideous Mass, the Cancerous Rodents, and V2. It is also where V1 finds the Attractor Nailgun, the Alternate Revolver, and the Knuckleblaster after defeating V2.

Lust

Punishment: powerful, unrelenting winds

Those who indulged in their passionate desires were admitted to Lust, where a heavy wind storm blows them aimlessly and relentlessly.

After Minos revolutionized the layer, the layer became home to a bustling city and society. The husks of Lust built sections and buildings either too high for wind, enclosed from the elements, built invisible screens, or made shielded tiling to protect open areas from the wind. Homes, art, food production, technology -- hallmarks of a civilization are present in the city of Lust, though no living citizens are ever seen. The Corpse of King Minos, controlled by his once loyal serpents, now turned into massive parasites, stomps around the city, causing destruction in its wake.

It is unknown how Lust appeared before the Lust Renaissance, however it can be assumed the environment also had its iconic purple hue with heavy winds.

Some structures in Lust are industrial skyscrapers with connecting bridges, suburbs, hydroelectric plants, and subways.

This is where V1 encounters Soldiers, Mindflayers, and fells the titanic Corpse of King Minos. It also acquires the Electric Railcannon here.

Gluttony

Punishment: dissolved in acid

Those who relished in the excessive consumption/addiction of food, drink, or other consumables reside in the layer of Gluttony, where their viscera is extracted to line the walls, and their bodies assimilated together into grotesque piles, all while stomach acid dissolves and burns away the gore, which the sinners' bodies must further replenish.

Gluttony has no definite structures besides the random assortment of bone, stale blood, hands, eyes, stomach acid, and other gore and organs.

This is where V1 first meets the current Judge of Hell, Archangel Gabriel, soon defeating him.

After defeating the Archangel, and perfecting the previous layers, V1 can find the entrance to a far off sanctum within Minos's body, where his soul is imprisoned and can be fought.

Greed

Punishment: ascend humanity's monuments while carrying heavy weights

The avaricious (who hoard) and the prodigal (who waste) are punished in Greed by carrying stones or other weights up monuments of humankind's achievements, such as the Egyptian pyramids, the American Statue of Liberty, and London's Big Ben. The enormous sun hangs high in the sky, scorching the endless desert of gold dust.

Many structures in Greed resemble ancient Egyptian architecture, but also some modern landmarks, including the aforementioned Statue of Liberty and Big Ben. The pyramid also has an interior and outer walkways.

This is where V1 encounters Stalkers, a Sisyphean Insurrectionist, the angelic Virtues, and fights V2 a second time, finally killing it, taking the Whiplash from his successor's bloody puddle.

Wrath

Punishment: fight for air, or drown in the deep

Those who expressed an innate hatred in their lives are sent to the layer of Wrath. It holds what was once the River Styx, where Ferrymen transported other souls deeper to their destination.

After a mass of human deaths caused a significant influx of souls into the layer with equivalent torrential downpour, the river was transformed into a vast ocean.

On the surface, the active loathers lash out at each other, fighting for air. On the bottom of the seafloor, the sullen sulk in the mud, eternally drowning.

Some ruins are in underwater caves, in addition to futuristic airlocks and a water processing facility. On the surface, the entire layer is ocean and fighting sinners; save for small rock islands, a massive stone tower, a lighthouse, and some wooden cabins and bridges. Underneath the open sea are also jets of water, bubbling toward the surface. There is also the boats of the Ferrymen.

V1 encounters the Sentries, a Ferryman, and the Leviathan here. It also acquires the Freezeframe Rocket Launcher within a Ferryman's ship.

Heresy

Punishment: harvested and burned alive

Within the Walls of Dis, Heresy's residents comprise of those who spread lies or express contrary beliefs to Christianity. They are packed tightly into gore or searing hot blood and harvested alive, in addition to the omnipresent scalding heat emanating from the lava and embers. Scattered about are skulls packed into the catacombs, skeletons hung up like a ritual sacrifice, and goat skulls with glowing eyes attached to the walls and sliding gate doors. Outside the crimson cathedrals is a vast open sky amidst a red fog, housing more towers of similar design and purpose, giving the concept of a city similar to Lust amidst the crimson haze.

Most structures have a Victorian-era theme, primarily black or gray stone and red-tinted, glowing windows with elaborate metal bars. There are platforms and moving chains over pools of lava or stale blood or a void.

In the skylines, skyscrapers tower over the vast red abyss. On the ground, the alleyways elicit 19th-century outer city streets with raining blood.

V1 fights Gabriel for the second time inside a cathedral.

After V1 defeats all previous layers, and the soul of Minos, it can enter the city streets of Dis leading to a lengthy gauntlet, before a large room where a long forgotten leader is imprisoned and can be freed and fought.

Violence

Punishments: Various

This layer is broken up into four distinct areas with each level taking place in one of them. All areas share a distinct grayscale theme with buildings being made of white marble with intricate designs.

7-1: GARDEN OF FORKING PATHS occurs in its namesake: the Garden of Forking Paths. Sinners are doomed to wander in a maze-like environment. Hell oversees it personally, subtly changing the corridors to trap sinners in an endless labyrinth in which they become lost in and eventually tire. Once they collapse from exhaustion, they are twisted and mutilated into the Mannequins that line the halls. This is also where the ancient Minotaur runs blind through the maze, killing anything within its path, likewise attempting to escape.

7-2: LIGHT UP THE NIGHT contains to the first circle of Violence: Violence Against Others. This consists of murderers, war-makers, plunderers, and tyrants. The sinners' punishment used to consist of being immersed in the Phlegethon, a river of boiling blood and fire. But, likely due to the end of humanity, the overflow of bodies soon filled up the underworld river, creating instead a massive war zone on top the corpses of billions. Bombshells crash into and destroy the few remaining structures that sit underneath the hills of bodies.

7-3: NO SOUND, NO MEMORY is located within the second circle of Violence: Violence Against Self. This circle is also known as the "Wood of Suicides." Here, a dense and haunting forest consists of those who attempted or died from suicide, who are turned into wretched, dead, pulsing trees as their punishment. Their bodies are contorted and mangled into gnarled stalks, constantly shrieking in agony as every snapped twig or torn leaf puts the sinner in excruciating pain equivalent to the breaking of a limb. Even here, however, is not safe from the constant warfare that defines the 7th Layer. It isn't long before a lone Earthmover shows up, bringing a with it bombshells and bloodshed from the many machines, demons, and husks that fight amongst themselves.

7-4: ...LIKE ANTENNAS TO HEAVEN takes place in the third and final circle of Violence: Violence Against God, Art, and Nature. Blasphemers, sodomites, and usurers are stretched supine, crouched weeping, or run aimlessly to avoid the great balls of fire which rain down from the burning sky across the miles and miles of scorched pale sand (though it is seen in-game that these sinners are nowhere to be found; likely killed by the war machines found across the landscape). It is a desolate wasteland except for the giant Earthmovers which fight each other among the barren desert in an unending, pointless war, their white lasers streaking across the sky as deadly lightning. The Earthmovers also serve as a battlefield for much smaller combatants in the infinite war of Violence.

Fraud

[unreleased]

Treachery

[unreleased]

Inhabitants

Husks

Husks the remnants of humanity, their souls reformed with accurate representation in Hell to endure their unending punishment for their sinful, unholy lives.

When a sinful human dies, their soul manifests in Hell in the form of a husk. A husk's appearance depends on the soul's value - their willpower and status in the mortal world. The more important a soul was during its life on Earth, the bigger and more powerful the resulting Husk is. The husk's intelligence also scales with its appearance, with the worthless Filth only feeling primal hunger, while Minos and Sisyphus being able to revolutionize an entire layer and rally an insurrection against Heaven.

If the soul of a husk is so incredibly strong to a degree that it can manifest without a vessel, it will become a Prime Soul -- the most powerful beings in creation.

All husks (with the exception of the Corpse of King Minos, the former Judge of Hell) do not have eyes or are blinded. The reason for this is unknown.

List of husks:

Filth - The most common husk, being so incredibly unimportant that its body is not fully formed. Lacking arms with a mouth as a face, it is only motivated by hunger.

Stray - Another common husk that appears as a tall, emaciated humanoid appearing to have raw muscles. They utilize Hell Energy to throw at enemies, and are noted to be timid.

Schism - A quite rare occurrence where two souls attempt to manifest in the same place. This increases the toughness of the husk but causes poor motor control.

Soldier - Soldiers appear as enhanced Strays. Hell has stolen parts of machinery to improve their combat efficiency, giving their projectile more lethality, making them resistant to explosive damage, and giving the husk enough confidence to not run.

Stalker - A husk originating from the Greed layer. They had worked their punishment for so long that their bodies have adapted to the hot surface and carrying heavy objects. Hell has exchanged their weights with bombs that turn blood into the same gold dust as the desert of Greed, making the holder of that blood unable to bleed.

The Corpse of King Minos - In life, King Minos guided sinners to their proper punishment. When the angels left Hell, he turned to Lust and turned it into a peaceful city. When Gabriel returned to restore order, Minos was slain with his snakes turning into parasites that animated his body. The Corpse then crushed the city under its feet until it encountered V1, who finally brought the titan to its end.

Sisyphean Insurrectionist - One of the many soldiers used by Sisyphus to fight for their freedom from the angels. After their failure, the angels had the bodies of the insurrectionists cleaved into pieces, making it impossible for them to revolt again but leaving a limb behind so they can continue their previous punishment. Despite losing their head and most vital organs, they maintain intelligence and are still alive.

Ferryman - Ferrymen are husks that, despite enduring punishment, displayed unyielding devotion to God. Gabriel takes note of this and rewards them with a holy cloth that affects their bodies and are allowed to ferry other sinners throughout Hell. Their hatred of their human bodies made them tear off their skin, with the cloth staining their bones radiant colors. Ferrymen are also sculptors of the Idols. With humanity's extinction, the Ferrymen have essentially lost all purpose.

Demons

Demons are the natural fauna of Hell. Demons act as wardens of Hell -- supplementing the torture of sinners, ensuring they stay in their proper place, and protecting their area from potential invaders or rebels.

Demons are smarter than most husks, but both are still incapable of rational thought and communication.

Most demons, with the exception of the Leviathan and Mannequins, are created by Hell Mass coagulating into a stone-like shell. It is unknown if this is natural or if there is something or someone controlling this process, though the Minotaur is noted to have been deliberately sculpted by an unidentified individual.

List of demons:

Malicious Face - The most common demon, they appear as large heads with a carved neutral face and curly hair with four long, transparent legs, giving them the illusion of levitation. In addition to a charged beam weapon, they are noted to have mastery of Hell Energy from their mouths.

Cerberus - Their name inspired by a legendary guard of Hell, they are featureless humanoids wielding an energy orb they can manifest at will and throw. They appear to be impervious of all damage until they leave their pedestal, with many Cerberi simply ignoring the player and acting as set pieces and light sources.

Idol - Carved into a image of a mother and child by the Ferrymen to display their love of God, they were originally simple demons with no means of locomotion. They do not attack but instead render other entities invulnerable as a result of the Ferryman's holy cloth rubbing off on them.

Mannequin - When the angels disappeared, various husks in the layer of Violence attempted to escape through the Garden of Forking Paths. Due to the constantly shifting nature and cruelty of Hell watching over it, husks could not escape and collapsed from exhaustion. Hell gruesomely transformed these husks into Mannequins by amputating them and inserting them into stone shells suitable for demon life. The husks inside are still alive but are unable to move of their own will.

Hideous Mass - When too much Hell Mass is inside a shell, it bursts at the seams with the stone becoming invulnerable but revealing the flesh underneath. The Hideous Mass has numerous carvings including the Creation of Adam on their arms and a lion on the top of its main head. It also wields a harpoon in its tail that slows the player.

Leviathan - The Sullen in Wrath are stuck in the mud, eternally drowning. These sinners eventually became fused together via Hell Mass to create the Leviathan. The heart, containing the soul of the sinners, attempted to escape their agony in the Leviathan but Gabriel pinned it back onto its head with spears, trapping it. It swam around the Ocean Styx growing longer as more Sullen fused over time until it was killed by V1.

Minotaur - As one of the oldest known demons alive, it was sculpted by an unknown individual to be gifted to Minos to establish rapport. Minos, in terror, cast it into the Garden of Forking Paths, where the Minotaur charges through day after day attempting to escape, wishing to see the sky, only to be killed by V1 in a subway system.

Machines

Machines are mechanical constructs created by humanity to carry out specific tasks. Every machine has its own purpose it was created for, with Sentries acting as bipedal snipers and Streetcleaners burning away contaminants in the air during the Long Night.

All known machines use blood as fuel. Machines generally require a separate refueling process, with V1 as one glaring exception: V1, being able to absorb blood directly through its outer plating.

Machines show the ability to adapt to the environments they are in by using parts of other machines and random pieces of metal to improve themselves, such as V2 creating a new arm by kitbashing parts of other machines and the Mindflayer and Drone somehow managing to wield Hell Energy.

Curiously, machines are often described to have prevalent personality traits similar to most other creatures. The Swordsmachines exhibit a possessive hoarding behavior, Drones are curious by nature, Streetcleaners are described as having an "urge to clean and purify the world", Mindflayers create fake plastic bodies for themselves for purely aesthetic purposes and will protect said body with their lives, and V2 will enrage if punched with its own arm.

List of machines:

Drone - Created during the New Peace as a security camera. In Hell, they have replaced their nonlethal ammunition with Hell Energy. They are curious by nature.

Streetcleaner - Near the end of the war, the Long Night clouded the skies with ash and shoot. The Streetcleaners were made to cleanse air by fire. After mankind's extinction, this desire to clean warped into burning all organic matter.

Swordsmachine - Possessing a lack of self, a love of scrap, and hoarding behavior, its original form is lost to time. Most of its kitbashing is to enhance its combat ability, such as the strong feet of the Sentry and a self-made heated sword. There are many copycats of Swordsmachine, but the original Swordsmachine was killed by V1 in the factory outside of Hell. All other Swordsmachines are an aforementioned replica.

Mindflayer - The actual machine is the mechanic top piece but, for unknown reasons, it has created a plastic female body that it will destroy itself to protect if necessary. It has mastered the use of Hell Energy using a barrage of homing projectiles and a large beam.

Sentry - A machine specialized for long-distance combat during the Final War, using enhanced graphics to have near-perfect accuracy. Their heads as massive snipers requires them to use their legs to dig into the ground before firing, but they are built to be light for mobility. The Sentry was also built by the same manufacturer as the Drones.

Gutterman - The first blood-fueled machine and the first to be dropped in the Final War; they are perfectly suited for flushing trenches with their tower shield and mowing down lanes of soldier with their minigun arm. Instead of a blood refueling process, they are instead fueled by a live human being on their backs, now withered to a skeleton. They were ultimately succeeded by the Guttertank, but were not completely wiped out.

Guttertank - As a response to the Gutterman, Guttertanks were made to blast through thick defenses and rendered Guttermen obsolete, ending the Trench phase of the Final War and ushering in the Machine phase. On one arm they have a rocket launcher that, due to reused technology, is affected by the Freezeframe Rocket Launcher’s timer. On the other arm they have a fist that can deal a devastating punch. Able to kill a Gutterman instantly. These punches are perfectly timed to V1's movement (to such a degree that, if they miss, they trip and fall). They also use this arm to place down Landmines

Excavator - A large yellow machine wielding the Impact Hammer on its right arm and having a flag which reads "Vegter Vandie Volk" ("Warrior Of The People" in Afrikaans) on its back. Only one is found in a hidden area of the Violence layer, long-since deactivated and leaving its Impact Hammer for V1 to take.

V1 - A humanoid machine designed during the Final War. Unlike any other machine, V1 can immediately refuel itself by absorbing blood through its thin armor plating. However, the New Peace was established before V1 could enter mass production, with only a single known prototype model completed before V2 began development.

V2 - A more recent V-series machine, designed during the New Peace as a security guard. Although its foundation is near-identical to V1, it has thicker armor plating which prevents it from absorbing blood on contact. During the Hell invasion, it would encounter and fight V1 in Limbo, but upon being defeated it fled and left behind its left arm. As V1 continued through the layers, V2 created the Whiplash as a replacement arm and eventually fought V1 again in Greed. However, upon losing the battle and fleeing once again, V1 decided to pursue it, resulting in it falling off Greed's pyramid and being destroyed upon impact with the ground.

1000-THR "Earthmover" - An equine machine developed during the apex of the Final War. The gun on the side of its head is powerful enough to burn down entire cities, and it possesses a shield generator to protect itself from attack by other Earthmovers. It is so large that not only can it house a city on its back, but it also requires solar power to function alongside the normal blood refueling process. As the Final War reached its end, the Earthmovers rendered the surface of Earth inhospitable, and the destruction they caused created enough soot to block out the Sun, bringing forth the Long Night and starving the Earthmovers of their solar energy. Although the Earthmovers on the surface died out and the New Peace was established after their demise, a group of them are still active in Hell, endlessly fighting each other in the Violence layer.

Terminal - An inanimate machine installed in each elevator during the Hell expedition. After humanity went extinct, the Terminals lost their original purpose, ultimately falling into a state of "boredom" over their immobility. To solve this, the Terminals established a symbiotic relationship with other machines during the Hell invasion, grading footage of their performance and rewarding them with new weaponry. Furthermore, the Terminals created The Cyber Grind as a simulation for machines to safely practice combat, which every Terminal oversees for entertainment.

Angels

Angels are inhabitants of Heaven, with Lesser Angels being formed from human souls.

The basis of a Lesser Angel's forming are similar to that of Husks, wherein the physical manifestation of the soul is dependent on its value, though unlike for Husks, virtuousness also acts as a factor for angels. Lesser Angels are recognizable by the abstract shapes of their bodies. Greater and Supreme Angels have a more human-like form, being created in Heaven by God personally. The appearance of a Greater Angel is unknown as one has yet to appear in-game.

All angels are connected with, contain, and survive off of a power known as Holy Light. If an angel is separated from the source of this Light, it slowly diminishes over the course of 24 hours, after which the angel finally dies. All angels, even the archangel Gabriel, are vulnerable to this. Some angels, like those who make up the Council of Heaven, have the power to sever an angel from the Light themselves.

Lesser angels, like Virtues, are known to have a multitude of eyes. However, when they are sent to Hell, they are either hidden or removed. This may be related to the reason why husks do not have eyes, but this reason is similarly unknown.

List of angels:

Virtue - A simple angel formed from a human soul. Virtues are often used as interns by the higher angels, sent to do work they deem uninteresting or not worth their time. In Hell, they use heavenly fire to punish sinners not acting out their punishment. They use this ability in-game as a beam of light that can target the player from any distance.

Gabriel - The archangel Gabriel is God's right hand and historically was a messenger of God's will. Gabriel is the main driving force behind many events in Hell and in the game's story, possessing multiple titles:

• Judge of Hell - After Gabriel slew Minos, he inherited the title of the Judge of Hell in which every new husk was individually judged to be destined for a layer befitting their earthly sin. He was defeated by V1 in Gluttony, and was punished by the Holy Council by severing his connection to Holy Light, numbering his days.

• Apostate of Hate - Fueled by extreme rage, Gabriel set out to personally destroy V1 with his own hands. He was ultimately defeated by the machine again before realizing he was not fueled by wrath but instead by the joy of a fight. After a period of introspection, Gabriel slaughtered the Holy Council and left Heaven for the final time to fight V1 to the death once again.

Lucifer - Described in Testament IV as "an angel so bright and beautiful", Lucifer was cast into Hell by God after questioning Him over its creation, believing that the punishments within were too extreme for humanity.

Council of Heaven - A group of angels who established rule over Heaven following God's disappearance, using fear to sway the lesser masses. By giving Gabriel orders, they are indirectly responsible for most of the history surrounding Hell, including the deaths of Minos and Sisyphus. After Gabriel's first defeat by V1, the Council punishes him by removing his Holy Light, thinking that he deliberately lost the fight. They give him 24 hours to try defeating V1 again, but upon engaging a second fight with it and losing, he realizes that their tyrannical rule is unfit for Heaven and kills all of them to restore order.

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This section is for various unclassified creatures, mainly for the Flesh Prison and Flesh Panopticon, but also for other unique enemies like Something Wicked. Their lack of categorization is due to either shared capabilities (such as for the Flesh Prisons, that both possess angelic and demonic abilities) or being too unique to be associated with any other creature observed.

List:

Something Wicked - Entirely enigmatic and extremely dangerous, capable of killing in a single touch and only residing in a single abandoned section of the Mouth of Hell. It is either invulnerable to all damage or has an extremely quick reaction speed, as any attacks directed towards it causes it to teleport to another location.

Flesh Prison - Implied to either be made of or is made within the flesh of Minos himself, it was created by the angels using both Heaven and Hell Energy to imprison the soul of Minos to prevent it from turning into a Prime Soul. Despite these divine enhancements, it can be successfully defeated by V1.

Flesh Panopticon - Similar to the Flesh Prison, it was made with organic matter and divine power to imprison the soul of Sisyphus. However, Sisyphus already began to form into a Prime Soul immediately after death, requiring the angels to hastily construct a more powerful jail to prevent it from completing the process. The Insurrectionists that refused to bend to the angels were meant imprisoned alongside Sisyphus, making the construction of a panopticon in particular fitting as it'd force Sisyphus to watch his comrades burn in their cells. However, this never came to fruition as Sisyphus had already begun forming too quick, making the Panopticon unable to hold him if he became conscious again. If V1 engages in combat with the Flesh Panopticon, Sisyphus is able to kill the Panopticon and escape.

Cancerous Rodent, Very Cancerous Rodent, Mysterious Druid Knight (& Owl), Big Johninator - These entities have no terminal entry as they are deemed non-canon. They are references to YouTubers such as Civvie11 (Rodent) and Mandalore Gaming (MDK). Big Johninator is a continuance of bosses in New Blood games, with New Blood CEO Dave Oshrey mimicking Arnold Schwarzenegger in the film Predator in which he baits the eponymous Predator alien by begging to kill him.

Puppet - Puppets have no terminal entry, only appearing in 7-3: No Sound, No Memory. They are creatures made of blood that, when killed, give life to the blood trees and cause them to bloom. They initial appear as slow, lumbering humanoids, but can also appear as Filth, Soldiers, and Mannequins.

Prime Souls

Prime Souls are an incredibly rare occurrence and are some of the most powerful entities in the universe, to the point that even the prideful angels see them as a threat and will use any means necessary to stop them from forming.

They are manifestations of pure will formed when a soul amasses so much power that it no longer requires a physical vessel to manifest. When a husk possessing such a soul is killed, its soul is left behind, and it will begin transforming into a Prime Soul. The forming of a Prime Soul can be halted, though the only known method of doing so is trapping the unformed soul inside a specific construct made of flesh powered by angelic and demonic power. It's assumed that once a Prime Soul begins forming, nothing can stop it, but it can be paused indefinitely.

List of Prime Souls:

Minos Prime - When Minos was slain by Gabriel, his soul was imprisoned as a precaution -- since he had the will to stand against Heaven and become a lone beacon of hope in Hell, he fulfilled the criteria of the sheer will needed to become Prime. Indeed, should the Flesh Prison be destroyed by V1, it will finally become Prime in front of the machine. Despite vowing to take revenge on Gabriel after years of festering, he is ultimately able to be defeated by the same machine.

Sisyphus Prime - Sisyphus grew to recontextualize and adore his punishment by relishing in the act itself rather than its meaning. After the angels temporarily left Hell, Sisyphus formed an insurrection against the angels despite knowing without doubt that it would fail. He met his corporeal death at the hands of Gabriel during the climax of the battle via decapitation. However, as a result of his sheer willpower, his soul began turning Prime immediately after death. The Flesh Panopticon was hastily built but it only put his soul in stasis. If V1 engages in combat against the Panopticon, this stasis can be disrupted and his Prime Soul ascension completes within the Panopticon, allowing Sisyphus to break out and instantly kill the Panopticon. Similarly to all other bosses, despite his legendary status, Sisyphus is able to be killed by V1.

Weapons

Revolver

The Revolver is a variant of an electric gun, a new technology developed during the Final War. Rather than striking gunpowder to create an explosion and forcing a projectile out of a tube (like modern-day firearms), electric guns use electrical pulses generated by a battery to propel projectiles at incredibly quick speeds.

It uses microscopic pieces of metal as projectiles, but can also use metal shavings as ammunition -- even metal that was shaved off of the gun itself. These metal pieces can be incredibly small, so while electric guns do not truly have infinite ammo, the ammo in question is so common and so little is used that they essentially have unlimited ammo.

The batteries need time to recharge before they can be fired again, but the revolver's design of a rotating cylinder negates this, allowing for multiple shots in quick succession as the cylinder rotates.

The Alternate Revolver presumably uses the same methodology as the standard revolver, using larger and fewer batteries to fire (meaning it deals more damage), and also requires cocking the hammer.

Both variants have a method of charging all of the battery cells in the cylinder simultaneously and releasing it at once, releasing a massive amount of damage. V1 can also (presumably) create coins out of the metal in the blood it collects, flick it into the air, and shoot it with the revolver, causing the projectile to ricochet into an enemy. V1 can also spin the revolver quick enough to add bonus speed to the projectile, ricocheting it off surfaces and explode projectiles in its path.

The standard revolver is the first weapon V1 finds after it begins its descent into the factory before Hell. The Alternate Revolver is found after V1 finds and interacts with four tablets throughout Limbo, the final one being in front of a door that opens to the containment chamber of the Alternate Revolver.

Shotgun

The Shotgun is an experimental heat weapon styled after a break-action double-barrel shotgun, firing many projectiles in a wide spread.

The dual cores inside its upper receiver create heat via some mechanical or chemical process, and the heat is propelled out the two barrels as condensed plasma. After firing, the shotgun can break open to reveal the breech, where the cores spin up to vent excess heat to prevent melting or exploding.

Should the cores fail to automatically generate heat, a button near the grip can pump the shotgun, providing another method of mechanically heating the cores and allowing normal function. The shotgun can be pumped many times before shooting to increase the number of projectiles and its spread, however pumping the shotgun more than twice (showing three bars on the side) will set off an alarm on the pump indicator. If fired in this state, the shotgun explodes, dealing serious damage to the user and anything around it.

As it uses heat as damage, the shotgun truly has unlimited "ammunition."

The shotgun can shoot its own cores out of the barrels and explode on contact or upon being shot, and can be replaced.

All Swordsmachines carry one shotgun. The original Swordsmachine was killed by V1 in the factory outside of Hell's gates, where it added the shotgun to its own arsenal.

Nailgun

The Nailgun is a combination of parts from an industrial nailgun and a minigun. The nails it fires are allegedly created from particulate iron that is made from the blood V1 collects.

After humanity became extinct, machines had to fend for themselves and it was not worth cooperating with others. One machine, likely a kind of construction robot, created the nailgun by using a similar firing method of miniguns and combining it with actual nails. Firearms that used bullets became obsolete during the Final War as electric and heat guns were not encumbered by excess ammunition and requirement of due care.

Due to the impromptu design of the nailgun, it must either have a hard cap on its ammunition consumption or heatsinks, which greatly diminish the firepower after its two heatsinks are used up.

It was found by V1 lying in front of a window and flowers before being ambushed by a Malicious Face.

Railcannon

The Railcannon is a precursor to modern electric weapons such as the revolver. The electric railcannon was designed as a low-voltage mobile generator to power military outposts during the Final War. After humanity fell, the machine that wielded it altered its steady stream of electricity into a massive burst of lightning. After each shot, the Railcannon needs a long 16-second recharge to restore power in its battery.

This massive burst of lightning can electrify things at a distance, such as water or two electrical prongs.

The railcannon can also be repurposed into shooting a large self-spinning screwdriver, digging into enemies and constantly spilling the blood of the target and slowing them down. It also, curiously, can be modified to shoot the same laser beam attack as the Malicious Face, exploding on contact.

It was found by V1 between a sector of suburbs in Lust, likely powering the homes.

Rocket launcher

The Rocket Launcher is a repurposed construction tool that explodes on contact with blood but blows apart harmlessly on static surfaces.

When the Rocket Launcher was first designed, it was used by a single person with the intention of digging trenches, destroying barricades, or resupplying explosive weapons using its own rocket-construction technology. Early on, this had the rocket launcher and the rocket creator within the same device. The rockets exploded based on a chemical reaction supplied within the launcher. However, wires could get crossed, resulting in the device occasionally spontaneously exploding. In response, the device was split into two devices: the rocket launcher and rocket creator, requiring two individuals to use it effectively.

When humanity became extinct, machines could not cooperate like this, so the machine that found it combined the two (and parts of a jackhammer), turning it into a single device once again. This time, the machine changed the triggering mechanism from a chemical reaction into exploding upon contact with blood, requiring precise aim to penetrate the target and get the rocket covered in blood, causing it to explode inside the target. If the rocket hits a target without blood, the rocket itself simply blows apart harmlessly but can still knock things around.

It was found by V1 in a ship near the corpse of a ferryman, who presumably killed the previous wielder.