Ferryman

For more information about other enemies, see Enemies

Ferrymen are Supreme Husks first encountered as a boss at the end of the mission [ 5-2: WAVES OF THE STARLESS SEA ]. They appear in later levels of the campaign as normal enemies, and are also encountered as special enemies in later waves of the Cyber Grind. He serves as a fast-paced melee enemy, dealing quick combos with his large oar.

Appearance

The Ferryman is a skeletal humanoid figure with blue bones, and a small, white robe covering his face and torso. He wears gold, ring-like artifacts around his limbs, and on the top of his hood is a figure that resembles a crescent moon. He also wields a large white boat oar.

Combat

To initiate the boss encounter in [ 5-2: WAVES OF THE STARLESS SEA ], the player must destroy the Idol blessing the Ferryman. Upon the Idol's destruction, he will backflip right onto the deck, starting the fight. During the fight, the Ferryman will generate a translucent box around the Ferry's deck and the roof, depending on the phase, creating a closed arena for them and the player to fight in.

When his first HP bar is depleted, the Ferryman will run to the roof and will repeatedly attempt to strike the player with lightning. These lightning strikes can easily be avoided by stepping away from the transparent white lines that indicate where the bolts are going to hit. The lightning bolts are an AoE attack, so it is recommended to keep a good distance away from the lines when they show up. Running to the roof and destroying the second Idol will continue the fight, until he is finally defeated.

The Ferryman has eight different attacks, and which attack he chooses to use largely depends on the player's movements. Many of his attacks consist of combos of two attacks chained together, where only some can be parried. Parrying the Ferryman will result in lightning striking him for additional damage,

If the player is close, the Ferryman can perform an overhead oar swing, followed by a horizontal swipe. The first swing cannot be parried, while the second can. Alternatively, he can perform an upwards kick immediately followed by a downward kick. Like the first move, only the second attack can be parried. If the player is also airborne, the Ferryman will strike with a jumping thrust with his oar directly upwards into the air, which cannot be parried.

If the player is actively approaching The Ferryman, he may dash backwards, followed up by a parryable large spinning oar strike that launches the player upwards. Alternatively, he can position himself atop his oar before slamming it down onto the ground, creating an average-sized explosion. This attack can also be parried.

If the player is walking away, the Ferryman will perform an unparryable spinning oar strike to quickly close the distance. Alternatively, he may perform a swift forward thrust with the oar that is able to be parried. The Ferryman will also summon lightning strikes towards the player's current position if he has been unable to attack for multiple seconds, similar to his attack method before the second phase of his boss fight. Approaching the Ferryman before the lightning strikes will cancel it, causing him to resume with his normal attacks.

Difficulty Changes

• HARMLESS
  • Ferrymen move and attack much slower than usual.

• LENIENT
  • Ferrymen move and attack slower than usual.

• VIOLENT
  • Ferrymen move and attack faster than usual.

• BRUTAL
  • Ferrymen move and attack much faster than usual.
  • He gains the ability to summon a lightning strike up-close, which can be cancelled by parrying him.
  • His first and second phase boss health is increased from 45 to 68.

Terminal Data

For more information, see Terminal

TYPE: Supreme Husk

DATA:
Ferrymen are rare husks whose powerful bodies, trained skills and blind faith have granted them the chance of becoming the transporters of souls between the layers of Hell.

They have each been given a holy cloth by Heaven as a symbol of their devotion to God's order, which they wear over their bodies to hide the human form that they've grown to despise as a reminder of their sins in life stopping them from becoming angels, to the extent that they have torn off their own skin and flesh, leaving behind only bones.

Due to the holy power emanating from the cloth, Ferrymen's skeletal bodies have slowly been colored bright and radiant, and their skulls have enough latent energy to open gates that otherwise stop Husks from exiting their places of torment.

Each ferry can only have one Ferryman at a time, so when a new Ferryman is formed, it will fight another to the death in order to take their place and inherit their cloth. The loser's skull is taken as a trophy and used to grant the winner passage across the layers in order to transport the souls of the damned to their destinations.

Ferrymen will often use the knowledge from their past life to improve their ferries, growing past the need for oars, which are now used by Ferrymen only as weapons.

As the influx of souls has ended with the death of mankind, the Ferrymen have lost their purpose and now wander around aimlessly, hoping that the angels would grant them passage into Heaven, despite Gabriel being the only one who cares about their efforts.

STRATEGY:
- Ferrymen choose their attacks based on their opponent's actions. When approached, they move to safety, and when retreated from, they'll apply pressure via attacks with greater reach.

- Despite its looks, their uppercut is quite dangerous and can be difficult to dodge. It's best not to stay in the air for too long.

- Some of their attacks are parryable and some are not. Pay attention to the color of their warning flash to learn which are which.

- Ferrymen may attempt to cross a retreating opponent up by rolling behind them before attacking. Keep track of their position and if they roll too often, try being more aggressive.

Rending Apart

A strategy for the overhead is to dodge the first overhead and exploit the period in which the Ferryman is flipping down to the ground by dealing a large amount of damage as if baiting him. Most of the Ferryman's attacks can be parried, displayed by the yellow flash before he attacks, providing healing and dealing a good amount of damage. Parrying does not interrupt the Ferryman's attacks, thus dashing away after parrying is suggested. The Ferryman's attacks can also be easily predicted when solo, as all of his combo attacks follow the pattern of an unparryable attack followed by a parryable one.

The best habit for fighting the Ferryman in one-on-one combat is to avoid backpedaling as much as possible, as the Ferryman will aggressively close the distance for trying to. Conversely, constantly moving forward to him will let the player control the distance and increase the likelihood of him using attacks that can be punished by parrying and pulling off high bursts of damage. It is also possible to bait him into a Rocket Launcher airshot by making him perform his jumping thrust.

Generally, most of his attacks are easily avoided or parryable; the hardest part is hitting the Ferryman, as he will almost always be attacking. Using the Shotgun (disambiguation) works up-close, though double-charging with the Pump Charge Shotgun is recommended. This applies doubly so for the Alternate Shotgun. Marksman Revolver ricoshots also work, as it will always hit the Ferryman. Outside of that, do whatever is comfortable.

For the boss fight itself, Railcoining him is also recommended at the start of each phase, or setting up a sawblade trap with the Alternate Nailgun.

Parrying a Ferryman will summon a lightning bolt to its position that will create a high-damaging explosion, which does not damage the player. This can make going for risky parries in the middle of crowds, such as in the Cyber Grind, very rewarding, as the damage and explosion radius of the summoned bolt is incredibly high, and is an excellent crowd control tool.

This fight is a harsh lesson on noticing parryable vs unparryble attacks, as well as keeping enemies in your sight. His large movepool and rapid switching between parryable and unparryable attacks makes paying attention to both the colored flashes and the sound cues key to winning. In addition, the Ferryman will try to escape your line of sight to sneak attack you, meaning you must keep track of where he is and put him back in your sight.

Patch History

Trivia

• In the 2021 Development Recap, V1 is seen using the oar as a spoon. This may be a homage to a frequent in-joke in the ULTRAKILL community where the Ferryman wields a giant spoon, rather than an oar.^[1]
• Tossing a coin to the Ferryman in [ 5-2: WAVES OF THE STARLESS SEA ] will allow his fight to be skipped, which completes the level's challenge.
  • This is a reference to Ferrymen in myths, where departed souls have to pay ferrymen a coin for a ride to the afterlife, as seen when the Ferryman allows the player to enter [ 5-3: SHIP OF FOOLS ], his own ship, after paying.
• Upon inspecting the Ferryman's model under his cloth, he appears to lack a head despite the rest of his body being physically present.
• The Ferryman's lightning attack can be reflected using a coin, causing it to ricochet away. Causing the Ferryman to be hit by his lightning, generally by throwing two or more coins and breaking the Idol after the lightning hits them, will grant the [+RIDE THE LIGHTNING] Style Bonus, but not the [+CHARGEBACK] Style Bonus.
  • This is likely due to the lightning and Malicious Railcannon sharing similar mechanics and therefore likely using recycled code from the other.
  • If the lightning is redirected into a Core Eject Shotgun's core using a coin, it creates a larger, blue explosion, akin to the explosion created by hitting a core with a Malicious Railcannon's beam, but with higher damage. This further supports the former theory. ^{If you can pull this off in the Cyber Grind and kill an enemy with it, PLEASE put a footnote to the video here. Bonus points if you kill the same Ferryman with it.}
• The lightning attack is electric, meaning that should the redirected lightning strike an enemy who has nails stuck in it, the nails will explode similar to when being shot by the Electric Railcannon and giving the [+CONDUCTOR] Style Bonus.
  • If trying to reflect the lightning, a consistent method is to throw the coin right above his head and parry after he does the oar thrust-swing combo.
• In the Cyber Grind, Ferrymen begin spawning on Wave 22.
• The skulls used by the player as keys are heavily implied by the Ferryman's Terminal entry to be the skulls of dead Ferrymen, which also implies there were red Ferrymen as well. This is further supported by concept art showing a red Ferryman.
• If a Ferryman is caught in the path of a falling Malicious Face corpse, the Ferryman will roll out of the way, but the [+MAURICED] Style Bonus will still be awarded. This can be done multiple times and the Ferryman might display buggy behavior. If the [+MAURICED] Style Bonus occurred while the Ferryman was in the middle of a jump attack, the Ferryman will stop moving and will be launched up extremely far when approached. Moving away from them after they launch will cause them to roll at extreme speeds, usually resulting in them careening away from the Cyber Grind arena.
• Prior to Patch 12a, Ferrymen had no immunity to friendly fire damage, so Strays and other Husks could thus inflict friendly fire on Ferrymen despite Terminal data suggesting their projectiles ignore other Husks.
• Ferrymen leave no gibs when killed, but when parried to death, the resulting lightning bolt will destroy their body entirely.
• Out of all of the enemies and bosses in the game, the Ferryman has one of the most diverse moveset of eight attacks, tying to Minos Prime's eight attacks, and even beating Sisyphus Prime's moveset, only having seven attacks.
• Ferrymen and Sentry corpses as of now can't be destroyed by any means. However, explosions can still fling them at long distances.

Gallery

Ferryman concept art.

Ditto.

Portrait of the Ferryman found in [ 5-2: WAVES OF THE STARLESS SEA ].

Ditto, in high definition.

Painting of the Ferryman appearing before Wrath's denizens with a Rocket Launcher found in 5-3

Painting of Ferryman appearing before Wrath's denizens with the Rocket Launcher found in [ 5-3: SHIP OF FOOLS ] in high definition.

Painting of Ferryman being carried by Gabriel found in [ 5-3: SHIP OF FOOLS ].

Official render for the Ferryman.

Depiction of the Ferryman and Gabriel as seen in the official music cover for "He Is the Light in My Darkness".

References

Enemies

Husks Filth Stray Schism Soldier TCoKM(?) Stalker Insurrectionist Ferryman Machines Swordsmachine Drone Streetcleaner V2 Mindflayer V2 (2nd) Sentry Gutterman Guttertank 1000-THR Defence System Earthmover Demons Malicious Face Cerberus Hideous Mass Idol Leviathan Mannequin Minotaur Angels Gabriel, Judge of Hell Virtue Gabriel, Apostate of Hate Prime Souls Minos Prime Sisyphus Prime Other Something Wicked Cancerous Rodent Very Cancerous Rodent MDK&O(?) Big Johninator Puppet Flesh Prison Flesh Panopticon