Diluvian Ultra

About

Diluvian Ultra is a single player shooter game with a science fiction theme. It was developed by Cresthelm Studios and was released on September 28, 2023. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

Battle through a living ship made out of flesh and stone, in this pulse pounding retro first person shooter.

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61%

Audience ScoreBased on 250 reviews

graphics43 positive mentions

stability18 negative mentions

Unique and visually striking biopunk art style with rich environmental storytelling and immersive worldbuilding.
Fast-paced, fluid, and challenging combat emphasizing strategic weapon switching between armor and health damage.
Engaging level design featuring exploration, platforming, secrets, and a cohesive narrative that adds depth to the retro FPS experience.

Persistent and severe bugs including save corruption causing weapon loss and softlocks, hindering progression and replayability.
Floaty and imprecise movement and platforming mechanics leading to frustrating jumps and occasional clipping or getting stuck.
Combat limitations such as low weapon variety, bullet sponge enemies, awkward animation locks preventing fluid weapon switching, and unclear UI feedback.

graphics
96 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
45%
52%
3%
Diluvian Ultra features a striking, colorful retro pixel art style with a pulp sci-fi and biopunk aesthetic that is highly praised for its originality, mood, and detailed world-building. While the visuals are widely regarded as the game's strongest and most captivating aspect, some players find the bright, detailed graphics visually fatiguing or occasionally rough, and technical performance issues somewhat detract from the experience. Overall, the graphic style is a standout and distinctive highlight that greatly enhances the game's atmosphere and appeal.
- “The pixel art is colorful and vibrant and does a great job at invoking that classic pulpy sci-fi aesthetic.”
- “Beautiful visuals, highly worth buying for the art style alone, you won't find anything out there that has this kind of style for everything, from guns to enemies to large worlds, hand crafted.”
- “Diluvian ultra is an aesthetically unique game - it has a lot of originality and a cohesive, surreal art style.”
- “The graphics hurt my eyes.”
- “Where DU fails to impress me graphically is the 80’s retro style does it more harm than good when looking at it from a quality perspective.”
- “Tt's also an Unreal Engine game, with all the issues of UE games: the music/sound cuts, the GPU abuse for no reason (I mean, look at the graphics), missing textures depending on the DX version, etc. UE is overkill for a game like this, the battery drain is way higher than you'd expect looking at the photos.”
gameplay
92 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
32%
58%
10%
The gameplay features a unique armor and health system that requires strategic weapon switching to break enemy armor before dealing lethal damage, offering a fresh twist on classic boomer shooter mechanics. While some appreciate its challenging, fast-paced combat and rewarding exploration, many criticize the gameplay for feeling clunky, repetitive, and lacking satisfying feedback, with issues like scarce checkpoints, frustrating mechanics, and occasional bugs impacting the overall experience. Ultimately, it appeals to players seeking a mechanically demanding, niche retro shooter but may fall short for those expecting polished, smooth shooting gameplay.
- “The health/armor system and the resulting damage types keep the gameplay fresh and encourage the player to use the full arsenal.”
- “The gameplay is great - definitely on the challenging end of the "boomer shooter" genre due to punishing enemy damage and a damage types system (armor and lethal) that forces the player to be strategic about when to use each weapon.”
- “One of the core mechanics is an armor system where you have to saw through each enemy's armor in order to kill them with lethal damage.”
- “The shooter part of the gameplay gets stale really fast; weapons don't pack any kind of punch and damage feedback is basically non-existent.”
- “The gameplay loop gets stale fast, there is no good feedback for when you are getting hit or hitting an enemy, you're constantly getting stuck on little edges in the environment, and none of the guns feel impactful.”
- “The save system sucks; you need to find 'waypoints' that are very scarce and distant. If you die before finding one, you lose everything you did, possibly many minutes of gameplay, and death can feel unfair.”
story
75 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
35%
61%
4%
The story is set in a unique, expansive sci-fi universe and unfolds primarily through environmental storytelling, cryptic lore, and episodic chapters, which some players find intriguing but also confusing or hard to follow at times. While praised for its atmosphere, style, and intriguing worldbuilding, the narrative can feel inconsistent, occasionally slow, or overshadowed by gameplay, leading to mixed opinions on its coherence and impact. Overall, it offers an engaging backdrop for fans of story-driven shooters, though incomplete content and bugs currently hinder full appreciation.
- “The story unfolds indirectly, through environmental details, brief dialogue fragments, and lore hints that suggest a fallen empire, religious fanaticism, and cycles of violence stretching across millennia.”
- “The game's narrative is primarily conveyed through environmental details and cryptic messages, encouraging players to explore and piece together the story themselves.”
- “Diluvian Ultra is an odd yet supremely satisfying shooter, one that somehow manages to make me sit up and pay attention to its story - a rarity for me in any game, let alone an FPS.”
- “Story was kinda confusing - map design looks great but I keep getting lost - weapons design looks great but they kind of work, but not every weapon works well.”
- “I've seen people complain about the plot and dialogues being nonsensical and/or failing at explaining what's going on exactly.”
- “This game has a hard time figuring out if it wants to be: a Doom game or a story game, and because of it, fails in both.”
music
35 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
37%
54%
9%
The music in the game is generally praised for its dark, synth-heavy, atmospheric, and retro-inspired style that complements the sci-fi and heavy metal vibe of the world, with some noting catchy Carpenter Brut-like synth tracks. However, several reviewers find the soundtrack atmospheric but not particularly memorable, sometimes repetitive or simple, serving mostly to enhance ambiance rather than stand out. Overall, the music is regarded as solid and fitting but not universally exceptional.
- “The soundtrack complements this presentation with dark, driving music that underscores combat without overwhelming it, though it remains more atmospheric than memorable.”
- “The characters and species look super bad-ass and the coarse pixel look is every bit as cool as the synthwave soundtrack by Karl Kasey!”
- “Highly stylized, the screenshots and videos don't do it justice, you have to play it to get its vibe with feverish alien environments and ripping, pissed synth music along with eerie ambiance.”
- “Soundtrack is extremely dull at points.”
- “The music and sound effects are bland and repetitive.”
- “Music: I didn’t find the music to be anything special or noteworthy.”
stability
18 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game is notably plagued by numerous bugs and glitches, ranging from minor annoyances to game-breaking issues that significantly impact playability. While the art style and gameplay show promise, the overall unstable experience makes it difficult to recommend until substantial fixes are implemented.
- “Diluvian Ultra was a game that released a good few months too early, suffering a litany of game-breaking glitches that often emerged just as the game was becoming incredibly enjoyable.”
- “It's a great game rendered unplayable by game-breaking glitches.”
- “I'll happily update once the errors are fixed as the combat is frankly a joy, but until then, wait until the multitude of glitches reported in the forums are confirmed to be fixed, as it simply isn't possible to recommend the game in its current state.”
atmosphere
12 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
42%
33%
25%
The game is widely praised for its striking art direction, bold and immersive world design, and dark, atmospheric soundtrack that enhances its intense, fast-paced combat. Its unique blend of ancient and futuristic gothic elements creates a memorable and eerie ambiance, though some feel enemy designs clash with the overall tone. Overall, the atmosphere is a standout feature that captivates players who enjoy retro shooter vibes and stylish, visceral gameplay experiences.
- “From the moment it begins, Diluvian Ultra establishes itself as an experience that values intensity and atmosphere equally, presenting combat as something both visceral and deliberate.”
- “Bold color palettes, grotesque organic elements, and imposing gothic structures combine to create an otherworldly atmosphere that feels both ancient and futuristic.”
- “The game has a fantastic art style and artwork that really draws you into the atmosphere and vibe of the game; for those who love games such as Doom and Hexen, this game will not disappoint.”
- “Artwork and atmosphere are really top, story is also not that bad, but it stops there.”
- “I love the backgrounds and atmosphere, though I feel that the enemies don't match; they're too cartoonesque in my opinion.”
- “This game is carried by art direction and atmosphere, not by gameplay.”
grinding
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Grinding in the game is often tedious and slowed down by imprecise movement and sluggish pacing, especially during challenging parcours sections. Combat can feel like a chore, with bullet sponge enemies and inefficient weapons making encounters frustrating rather than rewarding. Additionally, resource gathering through secret-hunting involves repetitive climbing and platforming, further contributing to a sense of monotonous grind.
- “Most levels include parcours sections where the controls feel too floaty and imprecise, causing repeated failures and grinding down the already sluggish flow to a halt.”
- “On the hardest difficulty, enemies act as bullet sponges and combat becomes tedious.”
- “If you want to hunt secrets and upgrade resources, expect a lot of careful jumping, long falls, and tedious climbs that force you to redo previous progress.”
optimization
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
17%
50%
Reviews of the game's optimization are mixed, with some users reporting poor performance and low graphics quality, while others experienced smooth performance with minimal bugs. Overall, optimization appears inconsistent across different experiences.
- “Performance: great, no issues with performance and I didn’t encounter any bugs.”
- “Performance & bugs: I only encountered one major bug: spawning without weapons at the start of a level.”
- “Also, why is this game barely optimized?”
- “Crap performance.”
- “Graphics (quality/performance) – 4/10”
monetization
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users criticize the game's monetization for excessive and intrusive advertising, particularly the frequent ads for other games shown at startup, which negatively impacts the overall experience given the game's full release status.
- “Massive advertising for other stuff every single time you start up the game.”
- “The launcher shoves ads for other games in your face, which is not a good look for a game that's been out for a year.”
- “I really don't feel like doing all that again right now, and the excessive ads contribute to a negative experience.”
replayability
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
The game has limited replayability, as players cannot revisit or replay levels once they have been completed.
- “There is no replayability since there is no way to replay a level after you have beaten it.”
emotional
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
Users found the emotional experience of the game overwhelming and disorienting due to its frantic pace and confusing level design, while also criticizing the story for being excessively dull.
- “There is also far too much incredibly boring story.”
character development
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users appreciate the game's unique and bizarre character design, which is complemented by its strange and intriguing lore, enhancing the overall character development experience.
humor
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The humor in the game is generally enjoyable and interesting, though not highly original. Some players found certain elements funny, but a few audio issues, like overly loud enemy death screams, can detract from the experience.