Despite still being in early-access after over six years of development, Ultrakill has made its rounds across the internet, leaving awe, excitement, and adoration in its wake. The beloved by fans high-octane boomer-shooter has been developed by both single-dev extraordinaire Arsi “Hakita” Patala as well as the growing team at New Blood Interactive, and after months of waiting, they’ve announced that Ultrakill’s latest chapter is just around the corner. FRAUD is set to be the eighth section of the game, which should have nine-ish “Layers” upon its full release, and the devs have been hard at work making it “every bit as fucking cool as you think it is.” Last Friday, February 21st, they announced in bold lettering in a Steam post: “Skip School. Call Out Sick From Work. It’s Finally Happening.”

FRAUD has been teased since early last year following the ULTRA_REVAMP update, and the game’s devout community have snapped the bit in half chomping on it at this point in anticipation for it. A brief glance at the X post announcement the devs also posted–that has so far accrued 1.2 million views–shows a litany of reaction images, fans asking for further details, and hyped-up replies. It has been, after all, almost two years since the last Layer was released. This is likely due in part to the revamp update mentioned above, which occupied the developers for quite awhile before they could get to work on this new Layer. The ULTRA_REVAMP update indeed set out to completely remaster the game from the ground up, completely redoing visuals, enemy AI, and other aspects of its “messy” codebase. And along with a massive increase in fidelity and performance, it stands to reason that FRAUD would have taken even longer without the revamp because of its technological complexity. The new layer is supposed to be an illusory and mind-bending experience featuring “non-euclidean portal technology,” and as such has required heavy resource investment from the developers. New Blood reportedly moved programmers over and hired new talent to the project to assist in its production. Additionally, as the developers remark, they have done their best to accomplish all of this allowing for flexibility in their creative process and in a timeline that doesn’t strain the personal lives of their team. Developer Big Dave remarked on this in an announcement late last year, stating:

…I view ULTRAKILL as a work of art. A statue that needs to be chiseled away at and iterated upon until it can become as close to the artist’s vision as possible. Then–and only then–once they’re happy with it… do we start even talking about releasing it.

After the impending release of FRAUD next week, it ought to then only be a matter of time until the following Layers New Blood has referred to as The Grand Finale and The Encore come out. But even regardless of how long that ends up taking, fans probably won’t have an issue waiting. Ultrakill has thousands of positive reviews from players and critics alike and lots of social media content backing it up as a game that lives up to its “ultra violent” premise with flying colors–albeit those colors are all red because they are blood.