He is protector of the titular ancient tablet that will grant full power to the winning victor capable of defeating him and save Earth from being consumed by the artifact.

Its gameplay consists of one-on-one fights, with a main three-button configuration, featuring special moves and finisher techniques, as well as two playable modes.

After the launch of BattleWheels, Atari Corporation was impressed with the work of Beyond Games and invited their founder, Kris N. Johnson, to see their new hardware that would later become the Jaguar.

Atari Corp. requested them to create a fighting game project and with the success of releases like Street Fighter II: The World Warrior and Mortal Kombat, the team settled on developing a title which combined several art styles to showcase the system's capabilities and would become Ultra Vortek.

[5] Some praised the mixed visual style and audio department while others panned the slow controls, choppy character animation and gameplay, deeming it as a Mortal Kombat rip-off.

A version for the Atari Lynx was also in development but never released, though Songbird Productions announced plans to publish it under the title Ultravore after acquiring the rights to the project from Beyond Games in 2000.

[4] During an excavation process in South America in the mid-21st century, archaeologists unearthed an ancient tablet named the Ultra Vortek which referred to both its demonic protector known only as the Guardian and the "Time of Testing", an event where people would send their best fighters to combat against the Guardian to seize full power of the Vortek tablet.

At a certain time period, the Guardian reappears before humanity and announces that he will destroy the world, unless a warrior defeats him in violent combat.

Once the fighter defeats the other warriors, he will open the "Ultra Vortek", combat the Guardian, and if victorious, may then use his newly acquired power to determine the fate of Earth.

Beyond Games was preparing to move onto another platform and develop new projects at the time, so Johnson visited and was intrigued by the hardware specifications on the new console.

[7][8][9] During a brainstorming session, Johnson and designer Curt Hatch determined that some of their ideas for the company's next project would be unachievable with digitized actors.

[7][6][13][15] After the characters were designed and Jim Meier began working on backgrounds early in development, the team started filming the actors with a blue screen at a warehouse.

Both Buzzsaw and Lucius were played by Huntsman and Clark Stacey respectively, while former bouncer Lamont Hanna portrayed Dreadloc and volleyball player Toni Fitzgerald acted as Volcana.

[7][8][13][14] Both Grok and Mercury were pre-rendered 3D characters by Hatch and Walker, while Skullcrusher and The Guardian were made by Chris Salmon as 14-inch models that would later be filmed through the process of stop motion animation.

[9][21][22][23] It was first showcased to the public at Summer Consumer Electronics Show (CES) of the same year,[24][25][26][27][28] featuring only four playable characters and different stage visuals compared to the final release.

[63] GamePro praised the game's "impressive" graphics and the ease of executing special moves, but gave it an overall negative assessment based on its lack of original elements.

They concluded that "Ultra Vortex is a great game for someone who hasn't seen Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat II, or Super Street Fighter.

"[53] In October 2003, a nearly complete prototype ROM image of Ultra Vortek was made freely available to download by website AtariAge with permission from Beyond Games.