OMUT Preview - I Died 30 Times in 10 Minutes

I had no idea what to expect when I went to check out OMUT at PAX West. When I walked away, its weird, dark world had charmed me, and I was more than happy to keep on dying until I ran out of time with my best run being one hit away from victory.. 

OMUT is mechanically simple, lean and mean with the one goal of killing you as much as possible. It’s difficult, punishing, frustrating, tantalizing, alluring, cathartic, and glory-inducing all in one. 

I’ll get into the combat and how it plays in the moment, but the best aspect of OMUT is that it’s a punishing game where you are going to die a whole lot that also respects your time. 

Starting a boss fight after a failure is instantaneous at the click of a button, which makes it easy to just try again, again, again, and again.

OMUT Is A Boss Rush Demanding Perfection

OMUT’s nothing but bosses, 20 or so all told, so the name of the game is just figuring out their patterns and quirks. If you mow down the bosses perfectly, you could finish the game in probably 30 or so minutes.  

I can tell you that I played for about 30 minutes and did not kill either of the two bosses I tried in my preview. 

Failure is immediate and fatal in OMUT, meaning that only perfection will see you succeed. If all goes well, you can probably clear out a boss in that one perfect attempt in about a minute or so.

If you can do that with any regularity for the first time, I’ll crown you the god gamer now myself. OMUT is hard as nails with little margin for error. There's a lot of dying, trial and error, and close calls until you get that one perfect run.

From what I played, and I understand there may be upgrades and changes later in the game, I was equipped simply with a shotgun with three shells.  

The shells replenish automatically quickly but there is a slight delay, so you’ll often find yourself in moments where you don’t have a shot ready when you need it. That means shots need to be strategic and thoughtful. 

Movement in OMUT is like a 2D sidescroller action game, where you can just shoot and dash. The dash does give you some invulnerability, which you’ll need to time correctly to avoid death.  

Shooting and dodging is really all you need to do to win but that’s like saying all you need to do to hit a bullseye is just pull back on the bowstring.

OMUT's Boss Fights Are Simple But Exacting

The first boss I fought was a floating demonic ball that was constantly trying to fall to the ground. In later stages of the fight, it would start shooting things out I would have to avoid. 

Every time I hit it with a blast of the shotgun, I’d send it back up into the air. If it hit me or the ground at any point, it was game over. 

Juggling this guy with my measly three shotgun shells was a tall task. The projectiles the boss would send could knock my shells out of the air (or I could block them with a shot), which added another wrinkle to the sporadic movements the boss would make already. 

Add onto that the increase in speed, and the fight had significant ramp ups to account for each step of the way. 

I was told it was either 12 or 16 shots to beat the boss and that at one point I was just one hit away from victory. I knew it at the time too and that didn’t make it any easier to step away when I had to. 

The one thing I’ll hold onto is that when I ran into the PR person later that day, he said I was the closest to beating the boss of anyone that demoed the game that day. I knew I'd see him at an event later in the day and hoped OMUT would be there so I could get some more shots in at the boss, but it was never to be. I am happy to live in my own reality believing I got further than anyone else.

The second boss I saw was somehow more frustrating. A large fat naked? man just running at you left and right. Sometimes he changed up the speed, jumped at you, shoots out a projectile, or leaps forward.

This is the fight where you learn where the i-frames are in the dash. The boss has plenty of good animations and clues as to what’s coming next, you just have to be ready to react, so death never felt cheap.

I didn’t have as much time on this one, as I got so close on that first boss I was determined to beat it, but I was no less challenged or engaged with the mechanics. 

OMUT Preview | Final Thoughts

OMUT is cleverly designed in a very meticulous way. The fewer mechanics and systems to engage with, the more glaring a potential problem will be, which thankfully OMUT had none in my brief time with the game.

With 18 or so bosses still left for me to see at some point in the future, I can’t wait to try all of their wackiness out. There’s no way I’m not seeing at least 1,000 deaths along the way. 

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OMUT was previewed at PAX West 2024.