- "In the year 2278, the intrepid earth coalitions maintains a barbarous grip over the sole mining rights to the rare, and highly coveted, nihilium.
Though little is known about this volatile matter, demand has never been higher..."
Hyperviolent is a retraux, old-school style sci-fi First-Person Shooter with Survival Horror elements released as an Early Access title by Terminist Arcade in 2023, with graphics resembling sprite-based 3D games from the early 1990s. According to the developers, it was influenced by the original System Shock as well as the first-person 3D adventure game Azrael's Tear.
Set in the distant future, the space mining colony Commodus Asteroid 27-C is thrown into chaos when the colony's Director deliberately merges with an Ancient Evil the miners found in the asteroid's depths, leading to the employees, security personnel, and residents transforming into grotesque, undead abominations. You're an unidentified starship pilot of unknown origin who, responding to the distress signal, has found yourself stranded aboard the colony and must now fight your way through and try to uncover the source of the madness to survive.
The game came out of early access on September 23rd, 2025.
HYPERVIOLENT contains examples of:
- An Arm and a Leg: At one point you can come across one of the outpost's survivors, spacesuit and helmet intact, beckoning for you to rendezvous with him on a taller balcony. You made it all the way up (killing zombies and monsters as you do) and reach the guy just as he gets into some altercation with (seemingly) an infected denizen, leaving the denizen dead and the survivor with his arm freshly ripped off. Coming to terms with the fact he's no longer in any condition to travel, he'll give you his keycard using his one good hand, telling you to "get out while you still can".
- Asteroid Miners: Commodus Asteroid 27-C is an asteroid mining colony, where the miners unleashed something terrible after they Dug Too Deep. And then you find yourself stranded in it and spend the whole game looking for an escape.
- Bald of Evil: Director Davolt is completely bald, and knowingly rejects his humanity and condemns the entire populace of the station to death and mutation so he can obtain supernatural power.
- Big Bad: Director Davolt appears to be the source of the outbreak, having merged with some glowing green energy (which various characters refer to as "The Eye") the miners found deep in the asteroid that seems to give him the ability to resurrect and control the dead.
- Breakable Weapons: Update #3 adds weapon degradation, with weapons having to be maintained with repair kits which also require components taken from disassembled weapons.
- Camera Abuse: You can have blood - yours and enemy mutants - splattering over the lens, either after killing mutants with explosive weapons from up close or when you suffer too many consecutive hits, where you then automatically wipe it off from your POV (a feature similar to the old, obscure FPS PO'ed).
- Degraded Boss: The first shotgun-wielding Giant Mook you encounter, at the end of the second level, is extremely durable and requires a large amount of firepower to bring down, requiring nearly two dozen shotgun blasts to kill. Later Giant Mooks are noticeably less decayed/mutated and, while still quite a bit tougher than average, can be brought down with a more manageable amount of lead, only being slightly more than twice as durable as standard armed enemies.
- Dual Wielding: One of the core gameplay features is being able to wield any one-handed weapon in each hand. You can even dual-wield flashlights if you want, though you can't fight while doing so.
- Equipment Upgrade: Similar to Deus Ex, you can find upgrade items, often in hidden areas, which can be used to boost the stats of your guns such as damage, accuracy, or mag capacity.
- Giant Mook: Large, bulky zombies/mutants armed with shotguns are some of the toughest enemies encountered in the game. The first one you encounter is particularly decayed and mutated, much tougher than normal, and serves as a mini-boss of sorts.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: A severed arm can be used as a melee weapon.
- Humongous Mecha: You fight one as the boss of level 6, Engineering. It has heavy machine guns and rocket launchers and is quite well armored.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: Besides the typical Medi-kits common in these types of games, you can regain health by drinking "Muck Cola" - you lampshade that the beverage is terrible for you, but still boosts your health.
- Infernal Retaliation: Flaming mutants will emerge from pyres, covered in fire, and purposely attempt to touch you while alight. The flames extinguish, and they turn into a pile of ashes upon being killed.
- The Password Is Always "Swordfish": In the first level, you can find the station's chief of security's computer, which is locked with a password. In the Early Access version of the game, the password was the default system password, as hinted at in an email that could be read on a public terminal just outside the room. In the final version of the game, the password is the chief of security's wife's name, which you can find on a datapad in a nearby room. It's easy to miss; fortunately, there's nothing essential on the computer other than some backstory.
- Pipe Pain: The first weapon you obtain is a "scrap metal pipe," which works surprisingly well against low-level enemies. You keep using it to break skulls until finding firearms later.
- Protagonist Without a Past: We know nothing about the protagonist other than the fact he's responding to the station's distress beacon and is a guy in a white spacesuit with a blue visor. We don't even know if he's working for The Company or is some random spacer.
- The Quisling: In Level 6: Engineering, you'll learn via datalogs that a large group of survivors managed to barricade themselves in a safe area, but were betrayed by one of their own, Valentine, who started hearing Davolt in his dreams and decided to serve him in hopes of being spared. At the end of the level, he tries to kill you while piloting a Humongous Mecha. This is foreshadowed by Paige noting that the sabotage in engineering seems to have been done by a human, as the zombies don't seem to be intelligent enough.
- Resources Management Gameplay: Ammo and healing items are limited and have to be manually looted by searching killed enemies and the environment. That said, on Normal difficulty, if you search thoroughly you should find enough bullets to kill everything with firearms, without needing to resort to melee weapons. However, on Hard, ammo is very scarce (each pickup only gives you about 2-3 bullets), making you much more reliant on melee to conserve ammo.
- Rivers of Blood: There's a water treatment plant within the asteroid colony, but thanks to the mutation, now the water surface is blood-red. And yes, you'll need to wade through the blood now and then.
- Scenery Gorn: Commodus Asteroid 27-C after the infection doesn't look pretty. At all. From piles and piles of dead or mutilated miners everywhere, to corpses strung up on display, to blood all over the floors and walls...
- Short-Range Shotgun: The shotgun is very powerful but is only effective at very close range. However, if you apply the damage and precision upgrades to it, it can actually one-shot most enemies at a reasonable distance.
- Shout-Out:
- The intro movie is extremely similar to Doom³, where a female computer voice talks up how powerful and immoral The Corporation is, only for them to be destroyed effortlessly by supernatural forces and have no major role in the main plot.
- One lengthy level has its floors designed to resemble the Overlook Hotel's carpet patterns.
- A corpse you can find in admin is named "S. Shaydee"
- The protagonist's starship strongly resembles the Material Defender from Descent. In EA Update 2, a level was added which contains a starship section that plays very similarly to Descent.
- Survival Horror: In addition to the Resources Management Gameplay, the speed and pacing of the game is slower than something like Doom or Duke Nukem 3D, and is closer to something like the original System Shock, albeit with more modern controls. You also have limited stamina for sprinting, and move slower when strafing than when moving forward.
- Sword and Gun:
- You can wield a melee weapon and a firearm at the same time, and can wield any one-handed weapon in any hand. There's a fire button for each hand, both of which can be used simultaneously.
- The boss of Level 7: Viscera of Commodus, Tobias, wields a pair of knives in each hand and has an additional 2 cyborg minigun arms grafted to him.
- Treacherous Quest Giver: PAIGE, the A.I. guiding you through Commodus 27-C, turns out to actually be Davolt, who was luring you to the center of the Eye so he could wear your body and escape after completing his transformation.
- Unobtanium: The Nihilium ore, harvested in large quantities on Commodus Asteroid 27-C, but turns out to contain highly powerful mutagenic properties.