Minotaur

"If only we knew the suffering that would befall us next..." This page describes special lore or secret content. Continue at your own risk!

For more information about other enemies, see Enemies

Minotaur
Attributes
Appearance	Monstrous, armored aberration sculpted in the image of a bull
Attack Damage	15 (Acid) 25 (Hammer) 25 (Melee) 35 (Plunge) 25 (Back Swipe) 50 (Charge)
Health	80 (Phase 1) 80 (Phase 2)
Support Priority Rank	6
Damage Modifiers	160% (Belly Damage) 200% (Exposed Skull Damage) 150% (Parries) (Phase 2 only)
Weight	Superheavy
Susceptible to fall damage	No
Other/Misc	Charges after the player relentlessly, forcing them to skedaddle the fuck away.

The Minotaur is a Supreme Demon, making its debut in [ 7-1: GARDEN OF FORKING PATHS ]. It can be seen rampaging through the level before being encountered later on, charging after a tram of various enemies before going after the player. It makes use of its giant hammer and acidic bodily fluids to smash the trams serving as a platform for the fight, destroy the player, and prevent them from walking within certain areas.

Appearance

The Minotaur is a hulking mass of stone and aberrant flesh sculpted to vaguely resemble a bull. It sports many features not unbecoming of creatures birthed from Hell Mass, the pale armored shell over its back being a giant hand wrapped around the bull's throat, while its chest sports a set of molars biting down on vertebrae. Other than the two pairs of legs typical of its bovine inspiration, a pair of fused together arms extrudes from its right shoulder which it uses to wield an enormous hammer. Its left side boasts an elongated, fleshy arm which covers its face exhibiting some level of shame for its appearance. Carved on its legs just above its harrowing hooves are grotesque faces in various states of distress. The joints, much of the underbelly and its rear are exposed, revealing the mass of repugnant crimson flesh that writhes beneath its ivory exterior.

After its first defeat, its shell becomes bloodied and cracked, ruining many of the carvings on its body and uncovering the monster's disfigured face.

Combat

The Minotaur is encountered twice in [ 7-1: GARDEN OF FORKING PATHS ], with each confrontation featuring drastically different movesets and styles of combat. In both instances, its extreme aggression coupled with its erratic movements and impenetrable armored exterior make dealing solid damage a herculean task, leaving few opportunities to safely heal during combat. This is further compounded by an almost complete lack of parryable attacks. Furthermore, its damage modifiers (with the exception of its exposed underbelly) are considered to be locational damage, meaning that only the Revolvers can take advantage of them, as the Alternate Revolvers are far less effective since they lack bonus damage on limb hits and headshots. Additionally, the armor that covers the lower portion of its back seems to be only cosmetic, as though sparks may fly off of it, the Minotaur will still receive full damage.

Tram Chase (Phase 1)

The Minotaur will give chase after annihilating a tram of Soldiers and Husks, forcing the player to engage it on three small trams while on the run. While not part of its range of attacks, it should be noted that falling off the platforms and touching the rails or walls incurs 20 points of environmental damage and can often expose one to further attacks while struggling to get back onto the platforms.

The Minotaur will always begin the fight by ripping a piece of its flesh off and slamming it onto the tram the player is standing on to create an acid puddle. Though it can only produce another when the first starts to decay, it is to be noted that all of the Minotaur's acid attacks boast an amplified Hard Damage conversion rate of 66% instead of the conventional 35%. This means that the acid deals 10 points of Hard Damage instead of 5. The puddle lasts for roughly 12 seconds.

The Minotaur can wildly flail its shoulder arm towards the player a total of three times; first in a wide horizontal sweep, then in a diagonal motion, finishing with a vertical swing. The attack is telegraphed by a blue flash emanating from the arm coupled with the groans of the bull. This is by far the easiest attack to deal with as it is relatively slow and easy to dodge. Simply jumping for the side swing and dashing to the side for the last two vertical swings is enough to evade the attack.

Lastly, the Minotaur will ready its hammer and roar before swinging it in a wide arc and bringing it overhead for another devastating strike, which will destroy the tram the player is standing on. The hammer swings are very easy to dodge, just like the rest of the boss' attacks. After a few seconds another tram will arrive, taking the destroyed one's place along with a complementary Stray. Though more often than not the Stray can be treated as a glorified health pack, it should not be ignored for too long, lest it lands a hit while the Minotaur takes the player's attention.

The Minotaur can also swipe its back, should the player attempt to ride the Minotaur. It's not recommended to ride it as there's already an easy way to heal during the fight due to the supply of Strays.

Rematch (Phase 2)

After seemingly being defeated, the Minotaur will take a page out of the Mannequin's books and burst through the final room's wall violently swinging its hammer, likely scaring the ever-loving shit out of the player. No longer restricted by the cramped railway system, and a tad irritated from the beating it just received, the beast will become even more aggressive and unrelenting in its attacks. While the chamber the fight takes place in doesn't house any environmental hazards, one would be weary to note that much of the cover, such as the benches and pillars, can be destroyed by the Minotaur's strikes.

The Minotaur will always initiate the encounter with a sequence of four hammer strikes; a wide horizontal sweep followed by a diagonal swing, then an overhead strike and yet another horizontal arc. Each attack of the sequence will move the Minotaur closer to its target, rendering getting out of range from the flurry of attacks quite the difficult effort. The Minotaur will telegraph this attack by grunting and rearing on its hind legs while thrashing its hooves around.

The Minotaur can also plunge its hammer into the ground before bringing its arms and hooves down onto it to thrust it further and produce a large explosion, quickly followed by an even larger, red explosion when pulling it out. Since this move forces the Minotaur to stand still, its best to use this small opportunity to gain as much ground as possible from the beast.

Similarly to the acid puddle attack, the Minotaur will tear a chunk of its flesh from its abdomen and either slam it onto the ground to create a large pool of acid at its hooves, or crush it and create an acid cloud, both of which last for roughly 15 seconds and inherit the acid puddle's increased Hard Damage. Unlike the acid puddle, multiple instances of both the acid cloud and pool can be present on the field simultaneously.

When at a distance, or after exhausting its attacks, the Minotaur will huff and ready itself, flashing yellow for a few moments before charging at the player at ludicrous speeds. Hitting a wall will cause the bull to stumble and stagger for a moment before resuming its assault. This attack can be parried for massive damage (35, over a third of its health), but if it connects it will deal equally devastating damage to the player and send them flying. Alternatively, the pillars scattered throughout the room will halt the bull in its tracks. Note that even though the yellow sprite that announces a parry window will only flash at the beginning of the charge, the attack can be parried at any time.

Difficulty Changes

• HARMLESS
  • The Minotaur moves and attacks much slower than usual.
  • They recover from stuns much slower than usual.
  • Their acid attacks deal 80% less damage.
  • They will employ their acid attacks more often in lieu of their hammer.

• LENIENT
  • The Minotaur moves and attacks slower than usual.
  • They recover from stuns slower than usual.
  • Their acid attacks deal 60% less damage.
  • They will employ their acid attacks more often in lieu of their hammer.

• VIOLENT
  • The Minotaur moves and attacks faster than usual.
  • They recover from stuns faster than usual.

• BRUTAL
  • The Minotaur moves and attacks much faster than usual.
  • They recover from stuns much faster than usual.
  • They will rarely use acid attacks unless the player is within close proximity.
  • Their acid attacks last twice as long.
  • Their first and second phase health is increased from 80 to 120.

Rending Apart

A common theme with the Minotaur's attacks is area denial, limiting the player's movement. This, however, does not make its attacks too hard to dodge. Its doctrine is defense through offense, and it heavily punishes aggression and careless play. The silver lining is that it will seldom repeat two of the same attacks back-to-back, affording enough time for the player to reposition and go on the offensive.

Even though most of its body is covered by impenetrable armor, the Minotaur is not impervious to explosions, so employing a healthy mix of projectile-boosted Shotgun shots and Rocket Launcher rockets directed towards its lower abdomen is an easy way to deal consistent damage (though be wary, as rockets and pellets will bounce off its upper-most armor). Furthermore, Marksman Revolver coins will always automatically target its vulnerable flesh, meaning that they can be used in a pinch to recuperate health if too close for explosives, or just to deal damage with Railcoining.

Generally, close quarters combat is heavily discouraged in both phases due to the armored exterior and large area covered by its attacks, leaving chipping away at the underbelly from afar with precision weapons and explosives as the most viable focus of one's efforts, since it's the largest and most consistent target on the bull, and is also susceptible to 60% more damage. The Sharpshooter Revolver may come particularly handy given its ability to ricochet shots directly into weakpoints, which can be used to bounce its charged shots off of the floor and into the Minotaur's belly.

When using the Alternate Attractor Nailgun, placing a magnet on the edge of the cart can make it so the sawblades hit the Minotaur's exposed belly. Additionally, attaching the JumpStart Nailgun's electric cable can deal extra damage, especially when compared to the boosted charge rate of the sawblades. However, this can be less effective during its second phase, due to the Minotaur becoming significantly more mobile and making the sawblades more likely to hit its armor instead of dealing any damage.

For its first phase, dashing covers just enough distance to move from one end of the platform to the other when standing at the edge of a cart, thus rendering a destroyed cart harmless if timed properly. This means that, ideally, the Minotaur should be baited to commit its overhead hammer strike onto the center platform to deny it as much value as possible. Performing a ground slam on the trams that arrive with complimentary Strays throughout the fight allow for a full heal, while not taking eyes off the raging Minotaur.

During its second phase, its face will be uncovered, acting as a weakpoint, and some spots on its armor will become bloodied and ineffective, particularly the long spine-like protrusion and teeth on its neck will become vulnerable to all forms of damage, and susceptible to the underbelly's 160% damage modifier. The right-most bloodied spot on its back can also be shot through with the Shotgun, Railcannon, and charged shot of the Alternate Piercer Revolver, though this yields inconsistent damage and may be unintentional as standard Revolver shots simply bounce off.

It is possible to slide under the Minotaur if one so chooses, getting up-close and personal to its guts for a satisfying meatshot. This is also a viable method to dodge its flurry of hammer strikes or get out of a pinch if backed up into a corner, but the timing to do so is tight.

Its charge can be dealt with in several ways; though daunting at first, parrying it is far simpler in practice than it may seem, as simply walking backwards will offer a generous window of time where the Minotaur is in range of the Feedbacker but incapable of hitting the player. In the unfortunate case of a miss, it's possible to safely dash to the sides to avoid the attack.

Terminal Log

For more information, see Terminal

TYPE: Supreme Demon

DATA:
UNKNOWN. NO DATA.

...

...

...

The Minotaur, one of the oldest known surviving demons, was sculpted by ████ ██████ as a gift for the then Judge of Hell, Minos, in an attempt to form some kind of rapport.

Though its creator considered it beautiful, a personalized monument of death and despair, Minos was terrified of the gross caricature of his past mistakes and cast it into the Garden of Forking Paths, hoping it would never be seen again.

Now the Minotaur is old and its body failing, falling apart, running blind through the labyrinth in a desperate attempt to break out. Its only desire: to see the sky for one last time.

STRATEGY:
- Although difficult to heal from due to its distance, it is best to be patient. New trams will often arrive, carrying weaker foes for easier healing.

- Much of its body is protected, but its guts are exposed, making for an easy consistent target.

Patch History

Patch 15b (2024/04/19)	Minotaur no longer stays stuck in its back swipe animation when dying during it. Minotaur chase now has an additional collider on its arm to push off players on its back.
Full Arsenal Update (2024/04/15)	Minotaur now has an attack for hitting a target that's on its back.
VIOLENT NIGHT Update (2023/12/20)	Minotaur introduced with the new Violence layer.

Trivia

• The Minotaur is a reference to the Minotaur from Mark Z. Danielewski's novel, House of Leaves, with both characters having their names and information regarding them crossed out and in red.
  • This is evident by Hakita's posts talking about House of Leaves on Twitter.
• Upon death it will reach for the sky, likely being an homage to its Terminal entry, stating it wishes to see the sky for one last time.
• The Minotaur's acid puddle is the only attack in the game that will change damage depending on the difficulty.
• The Minotaur is clearly inspired by the Minotaur from Greek mythology, as both boast humanoid features and are trapped in a labyrinth desperately seeking to escape, slaying anything that might stand in their way. Both also happen to share the same name, possibly denoting inspiration.
• Despite the Minotaur's obvious similarities and parallels to the figure it is named after, it is, in fact, a pseudo-Minotaur. This is made clear in its Terminal entry where it stated that the Minotaur is not actually the child of Minos' wife, Pasiphaë, but the creation of an unnamed entity, made as a gift in good faith for a newly appointed King Minos, but was swiftly rejected by the repulsed King due its nature as a reminder of his mistakes during his reign as the King of Crete.
  • The confirmed existence of Minos' past mistakes within the story of ULTRAKILL suggests that the Mighty Minotaur that the Minotaur is based on is an existing entity in the ULTRAKILL universe.
• The Minotaur's theme, "Bull of Hell", is a potential reference to the band/Sumerian legend 'Bull of Heaven'.
• The "████ ██████" mentioned in the terminal has four letters in the first word and six in the second. The redacted words could mean "hell itself", which was confirmed to be a living entity in the P-2 ARG. Alternatively, going off of the theme of the previous named characters, the first word is probably "King", while the second word is likely the name of the third Prime Sanctum boss.
  • If first word is "King", then the creator of the Minotaur is either Aeacus, Acacus, Hypsus, Lycaon, Lycius, Pallas, Agenor, Argeus, Danaus, Oicles, Talaus, Aegeus, Codrus, Oxyges, Aeëtes, Perses, Aletes, Bounos, Cronus, Celeus, Eleius, Epeius, Oxylus, Pelops, Atreus, Europs, Teucer, Helios, Minyas, Hyamus, Phocus, Mygdon, Otreus, Aretus, Neleus, Nestor, Cadmus, Zethus, Ogyges, Aeolus, Aleuas, Hellen, Aeneus, Haemus, Mentes, Poltys, Rhesus, Sithon, Tereus, Icarus, or Ulixes (A.K.A. Odysseus).
• The Aztec death whistle in its theme is played by Mandalore Herrington, who appears in [ 4-3: A SHOT IN THE DARK ] as the Mysterious Druid Knight.
  • Mandalore also used the Aztec death whistle to terrorize his weed neighbours once he smelt their "lung slaughtering necromancer kush".
• In Dante's Inferno, the Minotaur guards the entrance to the circle of Violence.
• The Minotaur wields a hammer that closely resembles the appearance of the Flesh Panopticon. However, this weapon is more rectangular compared to the Flesh Panopticon's square shape, making this design choice likely coincidental.
• When tricked into charging off a cliff, the Minotaur will continue charging through the air until the attack is finished.
• It's possible to parry the Minotaur's charge using a slam. Doing so is easier than parrying it with the Feedbacker, as there's more leeway to slam onto it compared to punching, which requires more timing.
  • This is the only attack in the game that can be parried using a slam.
• Its underbelly has jiggle physics, meaning if one were to move it around, its underbelly would wobble and shake around.
  • The belly's jiggle physics came from NSFW Game Kobold Kare, similar to the Earthmover's brain and the wires across [ 7-4: ...LIKE ANTENNAS TO HEAVEN ].
• Its roar is faintly heard in the room with the α sign in [ 7-1: GARDEN OF FORKING PATHS ].
• In the game files, the Minotaur's Enemy Identifier script classifies it as a Machine, compared to in game where it's classified as a Demon.

Gallery

Concept art for the Minotaur by BigRockBMP.

Official render of the Minotaur by Victoria Holland.

Ditto, but wounded.

High polygonal render for the Minotaur.