Bloodbath vs Cataclysm

Bloodbath is best understood as the spiritual sequel to Cataclysm. Cataclysm directly inspired it, and Bloodbath was built as a direct extension of it, right down to the gameplay. Bloodbath's opening ship sequence picks up where Cataclysm's ending leaves off, continuing the same run through the same song.

The two levels also share people, not just DNA. Ggb0y created Cataclysm and went on to build the final section of Bloodbath. Giron was the first player to legitimately beat Cataclysm and also made a part in Bloodbath. Riot verified both: he completed the legit-verified update of Cataclysm and verified Bloodbath, the level that made him famous.

Both are also part of the community's Apocalyptic Trilogy: Cataclysm, Bloodbath, and Aftermath, three levels linked by one song into a single continuous story.

Creation: one person vs eleven

Cataclysm was largely a solo creation by Ggb0y. He poured tens of thousands of attempts into it and, unable to beat it himself, originally uploaded it with a hacked verification. It would take other players to clear it legitimately later.

Bloodbath was the opposite: a hosted mega-collaboration, with sections handed to eleven different creators and the whole thing stitched together and verified by Riot. One level is the vision of a single builder; the other is the combined firepower of a team. For the full breakdown of how that collab came together, see the history of Bloodbath.

Difficulty and Demonlist history

When Cataclysm released, it instantly became the hardest demon in the game, tied with ICE Carbon Diablo X. It owned the top of the difficulty conversation until Bloodbath arrived seven months later and reset the ceiling entirely.

Bloodbath sat at #1 for over a year. Cataclysm, as more players cleared it and harder levels appeared, slid down the rankings, landing at #22 when the modern Demonlist launched in 2017, while Bloodbath debuted near the very top at #3. Cataclysm was the old standard; Bloodbath was the new one.

Same song, same hell, different scale

Both levels run on Dimrain47's At the Speed of Light, and both wear the red-and-black hell theme. The difference is scale and intensity. Cataclysm introduced the vocabulary: tight ship corridors, menacing color, relentless pacing. Bloodbath took that vocabulary and wrote a much longer, much crueler sentence with it.

Play Cataclysm first. It is the natural on-ramp: a former top demon that is now considered an entry point into Extreme Demons, and it teaches the exact kind of ship control and timing that Bloodbath later demands at a far higher level.

Think of it as the intended path. Cataclysm gets you fluent in the language; Bloodbath is the exam. Trying to skip straight to Bloodbath is possible, but you would be learning everything Cataclysm teaches anyway, just under much more punishing conditions.

On pure difficulty, Bloodbath wins. It is harder, longer, and more demanding in every way. But that framing undersells what is really going on here. Cataclysm is the level that invented the genre Bloodbath went on to dominate.

One is the spark; the other is the fire. You do not get the legend of Bloodbath without the level that came before it.

Related: The History of Bloodbath, Bloodbath vs Bloodlust, and The Apocalyptic Trilogy.