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Beloved boomer shooter is suddenly surging on Steam

Turns out all you need for a big increase in Ultrakill’s player count is guns, guns, and more guns, and a little sale certainly can’t hurt.

A screenshot of Ultrakill featuring an enemy being shot

Ultrakill has been a bastion of the indie FPS and boomer shooter genres ever since its initial release, cutting ahead of the competition with its ultra-violent tone, incredibly fast movement and gunplay, and face-melting metal and breakbeat hybrid soundtrack. All of this has led to Ultrakill sitting comfortably at a stunning 98% on Steam, spawning a new subgenre of ‘Ultrakill-likes’ in the indie space, and maintaining a dedicated player base; now, with its most recent update, Ultrakill’s concurrent player count has reached one of its all-time highs.

Over the last few months, Ultrakill has hovered at around 3,000 concurrent players, an absolutely respectable number for a single-player FPS game that’s already four years old. However, following the release of its Full Arsenal Update yesterday, which added a few new weapons alongside a secret level and new Brutal difficulty option, Ultrakill’s concurrent player count skyrocketed up to an absolutely massive peak of 19,806 players on Monday April 15. That’s over sextuple its average, and only rivalled by its all-time peak of 28,076 in December last year (still only a difference of roughly 8,000!)

A screenshot of Ultrakill's concurrent player counts.

Alongside the update’s additions, this boost in player count is likely to have been helped by Ultrakill being 25% off as part of Steam’s FPS Fest; as it’s rarely on sale, the thought of grabbing the game for just $19.60 / £15.74 might have been the turning point to convince anyone holding out on Ultrakill to finally pick it up. Hell may be full of bloodthirsty robots, but Heaven’s certainly got the players to fight it.

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For more like this, face even more hordes of nightmarish evils just like those robots with our guide to the best horror games on PC, and for more unique games from independent developers, check out our guide to the best indie games on PC.

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