UltraMisery

A punishing custom difficulty for ULTRAKILL, built on the game's unfinished ULTRAKILL MUST DIE ruleset.

Malicious Faces leave no head/corpse or corpse fragments when killed while UltraMisery is selected.

Public beta — 0.2.8

This is an experimental gameplay overhaul. Expect bugs, compatibility issues and uneven encounter coverage. Build and offline regression checks do not guarantee that every enemy, level or custom map works correctly. Back up your saves and use a separate mod-manager profile before playing.

Getting started

1. Install UltraMisery through r2modman or Thunderstore Mod Manager. BepInEx is installed as a dependency.
2. Launch ULTRAKILL using the mod manager.
3. Choose ULTRAMISERY in the difficulty menu, rather than the separate UKMD entry.
4. Fully restart the game after updating the mod.

For manual installation, install BepInEx first, then copy the included BepInEx folder into your game directory.

Difficulty changes

• Forced Sanded, Radiant and enrage behavior, with progression-sensitive exceptions such as blood-tree Puppets.
• Enemy-specific attack changes, homing-projectile replacements, faster attack chaining and boss behavior adjustments.
• Enemy vulnerability multipliers are inverted into reciprocal resistance factors: for example, a 2x weakness becomes 0.5x damage. Existing resistances remain.
• Enemy oil, ignition, environmental-damage and fall-damage protections, with exceptions for required progression and instant-kill hazards.
• Additional Idol, Deathcatcher and Stalker support enemies in supported encounters.
• Recognized decorative Cerberus, Mannequin, Power and Ferryman statues can introduce additional enemies in supported campaign scenes.
• P-rank time allowance is doubled. Non-P results do not receive an ordinary completion rank.
• Additional secret-boss kill requirements and restrictions on secret exits and level pickups.
• Natural campaign soap is removed; Sandbox spawning remains available.

Forced mission restarts in 0.2.1

While UltraMisery is selected, triggering these authored HUD messages restarts the mission from the beginning, discarding checkpoint progress: "PIPE CLIP LIVES" (0-1), "WHAT'S UPDOOR?" (0-2), "LOOKS LIKE YOU'RE AT WIT'S END" (1-S), "OFF THE BEATEN TRACK" (2-4), "YUP, THAT'S A CAVITY" (3-1), and "THE FILTH IS GONE, BUT THE MEMORY REMAINS" (4-3). With cheats enabled, these quote penalties are disabled and secret-level entry is allowed.

With cheats disabled, entering a secret exit restarts the current mission. Direct S/Prime scene loads are redirected too. If a loader bypasses the normal loading API, a scene-entry guard returns to the previous regular mission, or 0-1 when none is available, preventing a secret-scene restart loop. Ordinary exits remain usable. These rules have passed offline checks; the actual scene reload still needs an in-game test.

Weapon rebalance in 0.2.0

• Both revolver forms have doubled secondary recharge times and cannot detonate cores or rockets, including via coins. Charged Piercer damage is halved and wall penetration remains. Coins prioritize highest current HP, then nearest distance, and target resistant hitboxes; punched coin damage is halved.
• Regular shotguns have half primary damage, zero equip/swap delay and a 1-second shared primary cooldown. Alt-fire retains its own cooldown; regular pellet spread is one quarter of normal. Core damage is halved and secondary cooldown doubled. Firing at three pumps produces the native explosion and then forces player death. Attached chainsaws break after ten nonlethal hits, cannot be parried/detached by the arms, and recharge twice as slowly.
• A jackhammer hit on a living enemy overheats only the fired variant for 7.5 seconds, including killing blows. Misses, scenery, corpses and striking a core do not trigger this penalty. Core eject retains native primary follow-up timing; core recharge remains doubled.
• Attractor has 25 nails or five saws, one magnet with half its normal countdown lifetime and 50% more supported load, double fire rate and 1.5x ammo regeneration. Overheat nailgun has one heatsink, triple fire rate and heat accumulation at 1/20 of the base-game rate; secondary Overheat saw lifetime is halved. All nailgun-family damage, including sawblades and Jumpstart electricity, is one third of the previous mod damage (1/12 of base-game damage remains). Every sawblade variant fires at half its current rate while a player Conductor cable is attached to a living enemy, even after swapping; regular nail firing rates are unchanged.
• Jumpstart/Conductor takes ten seconds to charge without boosts, recharges in 7.5 seconds after use (50% longer), and is lethal while conducting underwater.
• Railcannons deal half damage and recharge twice as slowly. Electric fire underwater is lethal; Screwdriver drilling lasts 15 seconds; Malicious cannot detonate cores or rockets.
• Rockets deal half damage, travel/fire half as fast, have twice the ride fuel duration and cannot be caught by Whiplash. Freezeframe drains at twice the normal game rate (2.5 seconds for a full meter); recharge remains twenty seconds for a full meter; one rocket ride is allowed before landing. SRS recharge takes twice as long. Oil-covered floors halve player movement speed while walking, sliding or dashing; vertical jump/fall speed is unchanged.
• Five wall jumps and one double jump apply throughout UltraMisery. Knuckleblaster shockwave radius is halved.

This local candidate passed compilation and offline regression checks. Weapon physics, animation events, hitbox selection and live Harmony installation still require an in-game test after a full restart.

Enemy-versus-enemy battles

Enable cheats and Enemies Attack Each Other to use AI combat. Sandbox alone does not enable enemy friendly fire.

• Same-species opponents and support enemies can be targeted.
• Enemies can prioritize the Idol or Deathcatcher protecting their target.
• Attributed damage can restore the attacker's health, capped at maximum HP. Same-species damage grants no lifesteal.
• Eligible AI parries and stalemate-healing adjustments are supported.
• Enemies switch to another valid target after 12 seconds without damage, or 6 seconds of failed navigation without damage. Abandoned targets receive a temporary 20-second avoidance period. No alternative means the current target is retained.

Custom levels and compatibility

Angry Level Loader integration is optional. When installed, it can expose UltraMisery for custom levels. Campaign-specific encounter injection, statue conversion and secret-boss requirements do not extend universally to custom maps.

Avoid combining this beta with other mods that replace enemy AI, damage rules, difficulty selection or projectile behavior unless you are testing compatibility. Other mods are not included in this package.

Known limitations

• Full campaign coverage, every airborne attack, every boss intro and every enemy matchup have not been certified through live testing.
• Navigation still requires reachable terrain; omniscient awareness does not let enemies move through walls.
• Out-of-bounds detection depends on available level boundaries and is not a complete anti-exploit system.
• Custom or restructured statue models and nonstandard encounter scripts may not be recognized.

When reporting an issue, include the UltraMisery version, level, reproduction steps, enabled mods and relevant BepInEx log excerpt. Remove private information before sharing logs.

Disabling

Select another difficulty to stop UltraMisery gameplay rules. To remove the plugin completely, disable or uninstall it in your mod manager and restart ULTRAKILL. Manual installations can remove BepInEx/plugins/UltraMisery/UltraMisery.dll.

This mod patches behavior at runtime and does not replace the game's Assembly-CSharp.dll.

The final-wall-jump sound plays on the fifth wall jump while UltraMisery is selected. Five wall jumps and the extra airborne jump remain available.

• Overheat heat buildup from firing is 1/20 of the base-game rate, for both nails and sawblades; spent-heatsink recharge is unchanged.

• Power greatsword orbs use the shared homing prefab while retaining the paired swing and connecting beam.

• In enemy-versus-enemy mode, Prison/Panopticon reacquire living enemies and recover interrupted attacks; black holes damage enemy hitboxes rather than applying their player-only impact behavior.

• Guttertank and Big Johninator mines cannot be parried in UltraMisery, including the Feedbacker reward path; normal mine activation/explosion stays intact.

• Mirror Reaper hands become independent enemy-combat targets tied to their native Breakable durability and lifetime, with no kill-count registration. Their existing hurt zone can damage enemies, excluding the owner through normal attribution.

• Mirror Reaper prioritizes poison barrages on alternating ranged decisions; barrage animation speed doubles and post-barrage cooldown halves against both players and enemies. Other attack animations retain their speed.

Changelog

0.2.8 — local test candidate

• Same-version tuning: regular shotgun primary shots now share a 1-second cooldown, with instant swapping and independent alt-fire. Overheat heat buildup from firing now takes 20 times the base-game effort; spent-heatsink recharge is unchanged.

• Same-version balance follow-up: all nailgun-family damage is divided by three again (1/12 of base-game damage). Every sawblade variant has twice its firing interval while a player cable is attached to a living enemy; ordinary nail rates stay unchanged. Build, 96 native-hook checks and offline policy/regression tests passed; live gameplay remains unverified.

• Regular shotgun equip/swap delay removed. Primary shots share a fixed 1-second cooldown; secondary actions no longer check or extend that shared gate. Removed animation-derived lockouts and regular animation slowdown.

• Same-version local swap hotfix: enforce primary admission inside the native firing body, before effects; preserve the shared deadline across temporary active-scene changes. Rejected overpump attempts do not force death. Version remains 0.2.8; Unity playtesting is pending.

• Overheat heat gain from firing is 1/20 of the base-game amount for nails and sawblades; heatsink replenishment stays unchanged.

• Power greatsword orbs use the same homing prefab as other modified enemies; the paired geometry and connected beam are retained.

• Flesh Prison and Panopticon reacquire living enemies across species and recover delayed attacks interrupted by target loss in enemy combat.

• Their black holes retarget after kills, apply enemy impact damage without the native player-only damage path, and detect child hitboxes for aura damage once per enemy per tick.

• Guttertank and Big Johninator mines cannot be parried in UltraMisery, including the Feedbacker reward path; normal mine activation/explosion stays intact.

• Mirror Reaper hands become independent enemy-combat targets tied to their native Breakable durability and lifetime, with no kill-count registration. Their existing hurt zone can damage enemies, excluding the owner through normal attribution.

• Mirror Reaper prioritizes poison barrages on alternating ranged decisions; barrage animation speed doubles and post-barrage cooldown halves against both players and enemies. Other attack animations retain their speed.

• Clean build, 92 native hook/field/IL checks, targeted gameplay-policy tests and the existing combat regression suite passed. Live Unity gameplay remains unverified.

0.2.7 — local test candidate

• Normal and slab revolver shots cannot detonate cores or rockets, including charged, ricocheted and coin-targeted shots. Hammer-boosted cores and cannonball interactions remain available.
• Each magnet supports 50% more load before overloading. The one-magnet limit and halved countdown lifetime stay unchanged.
• All nailgun-family damage is reduced by 75%, including nails, nailbombs, sawblades, Overheat attacks and Jumpstart electricity/aftershocks. This replaces earlier halves rather than stacking with them; enemy nails and shotgun chainsaws keep separate rules.
• Jumpstart/Conductor recharge after use is 50% longer (7.5 seconds), separate from its existing ten-second attached charge-up.
• Clean build and offline native-hook, beam classification, load-capacity, combined damage and recharge timing checks passed. Live gameplay testing remains pending.

0.2.6 — local test candidate

• Regular shotguns now share a recovery deadline across all variants and primary/secondary shots; equip and ReadyGun callbacks cannot shorten it. Equip delay increases from 0.25 to 0.5 seconds.
• Regular pellet spread is halved again, to one quarter of the base game spread.
• Both Pump Charge forms retain their native overpump explosion before forced player death. Pumping itself still does not kill the player.
• Final-wall-jump sound now plays on the fifth wall jump. Jump counts and the extra airborne jump are unchanged.
• Clean build and offline hook, shared-cooldown, spread and explosion-order checks passed. Live swapping, explosion and audio testing remain pending.

0.2.5 — local test candidate

• Jackhammer overheat now starts on a confirmed hit against a living enemy, including a killing blow and delayed hit completion. Only the fired variant overheats for 7.5 seconds; misses, scenery, corpses and core strikes do not trigger it.
• Removes the added jackhammer core-eject animation/primary lockout, restoring native core eject into primary hammer timing. The existing doubled core cooldown stays unchanged.
• Malicious Faces no longer leave a visible/collidable head or corpse, including stone fragments from corpse-breaking kills. Native death processing runs before deferred object destruction.
• Clean build and offline native hook, hit/miss/variant, core cooldown and existing balance checks passed. Live combo timing, kill counts and encounter progression still need in-game testing.

0.2.4 — local test candidate

• Freezeframe drains at twice the normal game rate while frozen: 2.5 seconds per full meter (0.625 seconds per quarter). Full recharge remains twenty seconds.
• Oil-covered floors halve player planar movement, including walking, sliding and dashing. The reduction does not compound each tick, does not affect jump/fall velocity, and stops applying off oil.
• Oil detection refreshes every physics tick, including when oil is removed under a stationary player.
• Clean build and offline patch, freeze-duration, repeated-contact and vertical-preservation checks passed. Live movement testing remains pending.

0.2.3 — local test candidate

• Attractor nailgun and sawblade magnets now have half their normal countdown lifetime after attaching.
• Repeated countdown activation does not halve lifetime again. Other timed objects and native timer-pause cheats are unchanged.

0.2.2 — local test candidate

• Enabling cheats bypasses all six quote-trigger restarts and allows secret-level entry, including native unlock markers, elevators, scripted transitions and direct S/Prime scene loads.
• A queued punishment restart is canceled if cheats become enabled before the reload starts.
• Secret entry permitted with cheats remains permitted through that scene load even if the game resets its cheat flag during the transition. Admission does not carry over to later loads.
• Clean build, cheats-on/off policy checks, one-load admission checks and existing offline regressions passed. In-game testing remains pending.

0.2.1 — local test candidate

• Six authored out-of-bounds quote triggers now force a full mission restart, including the 1-S fallback quote. Exact messages were verified in the installed level bundles.
• Secret entrances now restart the mission instead of silently blocking the transition. Direct S/Prime loads and already-loaded secret scenes are covered; normal mission exits remain available.
• Restarts discard checkpoint progress and transferred player position. Repeated trigger callbacks are coalesced. Secret-scene fallback uses the previous regular mission or 0-1, preventing reload loops.
• Corrects the startup log to display the actual plugin version.
• Clean Release build, 136 restart policy cases, all six installed quote fixtures, native hook checks and existing regressions passed offline. Unity scene reload/playtesting remains pending.

0.2.0 — local test candidate

• Implements the weapon rebalance across normal and alternate revolvers, shotguns, nailguns/sawblades, railcannons and rocket launchers.
• Adds fired-variant jackhammer overheat, lethal overpump/electrical-water penalties, shared single-magnet capacity and persistent shotgun swap recovery.
• Reworks coin enemy priority to highest current HP with distance as a tiebreaker, and replaces weak-point targeting with resistant hitboxes.
• Adds five wall jumps, one extra airborne jump, one rocket ride per landing, and a smaller Knuckleblaster shockwave.
• Preserves charged Piercer wall penetration and existing Firestarter oil mechanics. Combined weapon damage nerfs apply once rather than multiplying repeatedly.
• Clean Release build and offline weapon/regression checks. Unity gameplay has not been verified; this candidate has not been published.

0.1.0

• Initial public beta of the UltraMisery difficulty overhaul.
• Includes campaign difficulty selection and optional Angry Level Loader integration.
• Includes enemy buffs, attack and resistance changes, supported encounter additions and enemy-versus-enemy combat rules.
• Includes damage-only Cerberus slams and Hideous Mass cannon explosion handling for AI combat.
• Adds AI target recovery for prolonged damage or navigation failures.