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Dead Cells 2022 roadmap & more to come in 2023!

Hey everyone,

We're taking a little breather from constant alpha/beta/update announcements to kill off the belief that, with the latest DLC 'The Queen and the Sea', we are at or near the end of Dead Cells' lifetime. We can see how people ended up thinking this, but reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated...

To clarify the situation we're giving you a little roadmap for the rest of the year. We're reasonably confident on the release times and content, but there's no guarantees in game development so please don't take this as gospel truth.



If you follow our Steam posts, you'll know all about our next update, which is currently in alpha. If you're not up to speed you can read the alpha post here.

Quick TLDR: we'll be adding the long awaited panchaku and a new flame head outfit based on our beloved animated trailers, a ton of rebalancing on weapons & items, reworking the legendaries system to make it more intuitive & interesting, a Soul Knight weapon & outfit and you'll be able to pet the pets.



Following that update we'll be adding a Boss Rush area! The basic idea here is to let you fight all the bosses you've met so far, one after the other, with unlockables to win as you progress.
There should be a few different 'modes' in the Boss Rush to expand the challenge beyond that central idea and we'll potentially be adding a scoreboard to add a bit of friendly competition.
Again just a reminder that this is all TBD so, for your sanity and ours, don't take anything said here as set in stone.


Before Christmas there'll be yet another update dropping, but this one is still under wraps so you'll have to wait a bit to know what's in this one.


Heading into 2023 we won't be slowing down, in fact we'll be stepping things up! It's going to be by far our biggest year since the 1.0 launch and we're thrilled to show you what we've been cooking up behind the scenes.


What we're getting at here is that we're very much in the mid-life of Dead Cells. We're not sneaking out at night to get drunk on street corners anymore, but we've still got plenty of life in us before our knees start to give in, so prepare yourselves for more Dead Cells content.


Cheers,
Matt, EE & MT

New alpha is out - panchaku, rebalancing, legendary rework, pet the pet & more

Hey all,

Hot on the tails of our accessibility release, we're releasing a new alpha into the wild!

In this update we'll be adding the long awaited panchaku and a new Bobby outfit to go with it, a ton of rebalancing on weapons & items, reworking the legendaries system to make it more intuitive & interesting, Soul Knight content and (game changer!) letting you pet your pets.

Patchnotes are here if you just want to read the list, if you want a bit of extra info and some gifs then keep reading!

[h3]Panchaku & Bobby outfit[/h3]

Your eyes aren't deceiving you, the long-awaited panchaku is finally coming to Dead Cells, with a new outfit inspired by the animated trailers by Bobby Digital. Yes, we already had a 'Bobby' skin, but now the iconic pink flame head is here to go with it.

It crits on enemies facing you and has a pretty tasty combo if you can reach the end, now go out and relive the Bad Seed trailer!




[h3]Item reworks[/h3]
It's been a while since our last major rebalance of weapons, with the 'What's the Damage?' update releasing over a year ago. Since then we've had new items and mutations from the 'Everyone is Here' and the 'Break the Bank' updates, plus 'The Queen and the Sea' DLC, so there's a few imbalances here and there.

So, we're making changes to 26 weapons and skills to rebalance the item pool.

Why do we do rebalancing? Well, we need to do this to keep the variety element strong - a good roguelite should offer you difficult choices. If you're going to take the same 2-3 weapons every time then you're going to get bored pretty quickly - we don't want people to be recycling 90% of weapons without even considering using them.

That's why we need to bring items to the same power level (or as close as possible) to encourage players to explore and use more of the item pool.

Here's what we're proposing:

Buffs:
  • Hard Light Sword and Pistol: slight damage buff to the sword and attack speed buff to the pistol
  • Queen's Rapier: the delayed slice hits sooner
  • Maw of the Deep: attack speed buff
  • Wrecking Ball: first and last attack are faster
  • Leghugger: now jumps on a nearby target before launching its reactivation attack + keeps its growth state across instances of the object in a run
  • Gilded Yumi: charge time slightly decreased + now crits reliably on Mama Tick (to be consistent with Impaler)
  • Killing Deck: damage buff on the first 2 attacks
  • Hand Hook: now also crits when the thrown enemy hits another entity
  • Greed Shield: can now trigger once per enemy every 10 seconds + damage buff
  • Frantic Sword: crit multiplier is now inversely proportional to your life (when at or under 50% max life)
  • Abyssal Trident: slight damage buff
  • Shrapnel Axes: slight damage buff
  • Pollo Power: now fires 1 more egg + damage buff
  • Crowbar: now also crits on beast enemies (hand-picked, think "non-humanoid, non-mechanic")
  • Lightning Bolt: now crits one tick earlier and damages you 1 tick later
  • Spiked Shield: crit damage buff


Nerfs:
  • Smoke Bomb: scaling heavily nerfed (it was following the same formula as the stats)
  • Grappling Hook: same as Smoke Bomb
  • Boy's Axe: damage nerf + can't roll the Extra Ammo affix + can't be affected by Ammo mutation
  • Bladed Tonfas: slight crit multiplier nerf
  • Lacerating Aura: cooldown now starts at the end of the effect instead of starting at cast
  • Maw of the Deep: its root is now less effective on bosses
  • Crusher: its slow is now less effective on bosses
  • Hunter's Grenade: no longer provides stats
  • Rapier: damage nerf
  • Sonic Carbine: damage nerf
  • Hokuto's Bow: procs less often + damage bonus nerfed


I'm sure there's going to be some pain here, especially with the Rapier and Sonic Carbine, sorry about that but hopefully the explanation above made sense!

Besides, none of this is finalised, we want to test the changes with a broader set of players and make some changes based on feedback anyway. However, we have our own thoughts, this doesn't mean you can convince us not to make changes to your favourite weapon by saying it feels too weak now...


[h3]Legendary item change[/h3]
We've wanted to adjust the legendary items for a while. The current system where they scale off your two highest stats is pretty OP and out of whack with the rest of the scaling system, plus it's just not very interesting - all it does is give you more damage.
It's also counter-intuitive for players who aren't clued in and will split the off-colour stats to gain max health, instead of focusing on one off-colour stat to get max power from legendaries.

So, we've removed the double stat scaling system, although legendaries will remain colorless in terms of scaling.

In it's place, we're introducing legendary affixes. We've created a few brand new affixes, including specific affixes for certain items. They have all been hand-picked and should have a synergy with the item's gameplay (or at the very least, somewhat thematically linked). This way, they'll be making legendaries stronger than your typical weapon by adding an extra, complimentary gameplay element instead of just upping the damage. There are a LOT of legendary affixes so I won't list them here, if you want to read the whole list go check out the patchnotes on our site.

Legendaries will always roll their legendary affix AND it becomes a bonus affix, i.e. the item is rolled normally and then gains the legendary affix on top. Legendary affixes cannot be removed, rerolled or replaced.

We'd like to have your feedback on all these, we're running a public alpha after all! Of course, we are not asking that you each test every legendary item in the game, although if you want to do that then be our guest. In this spirit, we added a new custom mode option (that will also be added in the release version of the update, it's not just for testing) which makes every item legendary.

[h3]Soul Knight content[/h3]
We're also introducing content from Soul Knight that was already in the mobile version. Soul Knight is another roguelite that already has Dead Cells content in it, so we're returning the favour!

The Magic Bow fires 5 slow-moving arrows, which make up for their lack of speed by homing in to their nearest enemy, and the Knight outfit adds the pint-sized adventurer and his oversized head to Dead Cells.





[h3]Pet the pet[/h3]
Finally, we're letting you, well, pet the pets.

In transitions between biomes you just need to long press the interact button to show some love to your latest companion.

Unfortunately the owl was too awkward to code this for, so it will never know the loving touch of the Beheaded...

You won't get any benefit from this, it's just something fun to add.


[h3]Other additions[/h3]
  • Popup window to tell you to try 1BC at the start of every 0BC run after killing HotK, if you've never tried 1BC (stops appearing after you try 1BC one time)
  • Sonic Carbine DPS display fixed
  • Damage cap (50%) added to the Servants (you can't one shot them anymore, sorry)
  • Conjunctivius' tentacles' damage cap increased to make them 2-shottable


[h3]How to access the alpha:[/h3]

Back up your save first. The alpha shouldn't affect your saves but better to be safe than sorry (and if the worst happens then there’s a save restore hack detailed here - https://steamcommunity.com/games/588650/announcements/detail/1696100248017690442)

Then follow these instructions to access the alpha:
  • Go to your Steam game library.
  • Right click on Dead Cells and click "properties".
  • Select the tab "Betas".
  • In the first dropdown box select "Alpha - Not for the faint hearted".
  • Click close and wait for the upload to finish downloading.
  • Start playing.


As always, everything is still being tweaked according to feedback. So some things may break, have strange interactions or just straight up crash the game.

If you want to leave feedback you can do so in the comments here, or on our official Discord - there are two channels called update30-alpha-discussion and update30-alpha-feedback specifically for alpha conversations, so please use them!


Cheers,
Matt, EE & MT

Hotfix released - fixing analog stick problems, sound effect issues & more :)

Hello,

We've just released a hotfix to address some pressing bugs that were introduced with the latest update (and a couple from previous updates!)

Here are the issues that we've fixed:
  • Can't use the down input with analog stick on controller. If the problem persists - reset the controller settings to default to fix it.
  • Glitchy sound effects
  • Crash when reloading a save where you are in Undying Shores
  • Issues with stat icons being misaligned and different sizes
  • "We recommend playing Dead Cells with a controller" message overlapping with "Show the update pop-up again" message
  • Boss HP resetting to full HP when you exit to main menu and reload
  • Affixes for oil dive attack and fire dive attack triggering at different heights
  • Auto-jump triggering while climbing, making it impossible to climb
  • Misplaced arrow in multiple lives selection
  • Dying to the vault challenge in The Bank with Continue Mode softlocks the game
  • Damage numbers on enemy hit have an arrow icon in the middle
  • Lock with dying on Time Keeper boss then Null Access crash on reload
  • Pollo Power effect affixes not working
  • Using Pollo Power while entering The Ossuary leaves you stuck in mid-air
  • Custom mode is displayed twice in the main menu
  • Sprite of item bought from a shop with a mimic remains on screen and can't be interacted with


Thanks for your patience while we fixed these, please continue to let us know about any issues!

We'll be back soon with more news :)

Cheers,
Matt, EE & MT

Dead Cells gets a huge free accessibility upgrade

Dead Cells is a great game. Not only does it look great but the action is awesome. However, it is rather difficult and for some nearly impossible so the developers have put out a huge free upgrade to help more people play it.

Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2022/06/dead-cells-gets-a-huge-free-accessibility-upgrade

'Breaking Barriers' introduces accessibility options, Assist Mode & item reworks

Hello everyone,

Our latest update 'Breaking Barriers' is live and making Dead Cells more accessible to everyone. It's been five years since our Early Access release (yep, five freaking years!) and we realised it's about time we made sure that Dead Cells can be enjoyed by as many people as possible.

TLDR
  • Loads of new options to improve accessibility, such as adjustable font type & size, input customisation and individual adjustment of sound effect volumes
  • Assist Mode including customisation of enemy health/damage, trap speed/damage and parry window. Plus options for multiple lives, auto-hit with primary weapon & full map reveal
  • Big reduction in cell cost of early-game weapons
  • 7 weapon reworks


If you prefer videos, here's a VLOG showcasing all the changes. Warning for short attention spans: it is 9 minutes long!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

So, we're trying to achieve this greater accessibility in two ways – one is a whole bunch of new options, mainly based around visibility and mobility, such as outlining characters and objects in-game, holding a button to repeat actions, or changing the font style and size. There's a full list of these options below.

The other part of the update is an Assist Mode that allows you to adjust elements of the game such as enemy damage, enemy health, trap damage, parry window and trap speed, plus options for auto-hit and multiple lives.

There's also a rework of 8 weapons, and the cost of early game weapons is being heavily reduced to allow players to unlock weapons while also working towards the crucial upgrades like health flasks and gold.


[h3]So, why are we adding the accessibility options? [/h3]
Hopefully we don't need to justify adding accessibility options, but we'd had quite a lot of feedback that the game can be inaccessible for a wide range of reasons.

Dead Cells is intended to be tough but fair - sure, you die a lot, but you grow your skill while gaining new weapons & powers until you can beat the final boss. Then you add a Boss Cell to up the challenge and die to a rat on the next run, pick yourself up and go again until the next Boss Cell, and repeat.

However, we realise that the way the game is designed can put up barriers to reaching this experience for some players. These new options are designed to allow tailored, specific adjustments of the game for those who need it, to make this "tough but fair gameplay" accessible, instead of adding arbitrary difficulty levels which don't actually address players' needs.

We hope that these changes can let more players enjoy Dead Cells as we intended, and if the unaltered version of Dead Cells already hits the right balance of challenge and progression for you, then these changes are all optional - just leave the game as it is and continue having fun :)

If you know anyone who didn't try Dead Cells or put it down because they found it inaccessible, then please do let them know they can come and give it a go!

[h3]What are the new options? [/h3] All the changes that are described below were tested with a panel of players with various disabilities at AbleGamers, and of course the usual legends in our Steam community. Thanks to everyone who helped us to figure everything out!


Input

These options are designed to address mobility disabilities.
  • Hold to second jump
  • Hold to roll
  • Shield toggle option, instead of long press
  • More options to customise controls, especially actions that require a long press or a complex input + joystick action
Additional input options


Visual

These are designed for players with various visual disabilities such as limited visual acuity, colour blindness or who suffer from sensory overload.
  • Customisable interface size and transparency
  • Choice of game font styles (including pixellated)
  • Game font colour customisation
  • Font size can be changed for item names, item descriptions and dialogues
  • Stats (Brutality / Tactics / Survival ) colour customisation - affects the stats colour for the HUD, menus, icons, weapons, items etc
  • Texts in the stat selection menu no longer use "Red", "Purple" and "Green", but "Brutality", "Tactic" and "Survival"
  • Display stats icons (fist, lightning, plus sign) next to character stats
  • Add an outline to the Beheaded, projectiles, enemies, active skills, NPCs and secrets. Outline colours can be customised
  • Add a colored filter between the background and foreground. The color and opacity of the filter can be freely customized
  • Synergy and stat icons in equipment menu to help readability
  • No-blood mode
  • Adjustable particle limit (reduce the particle effect from enemies dying or weapon effects)
  • Option to toggle critical hit feedback
  • Adjust the size of the attack announcement exclamation mark
Reduced UI size

Transparent UI

Font colour menu

Stat icons displayed next to items

Outlines applied to Beheaded and enemies (plus customised stats colours in bottom left)


Sound

Finally, we have auditory options.
  • Adjust volume of different sound effects separately



Everything is collected in a specific accessibility menu to gather all these options in one place! There's no point making an accessibility menu inaccessible...


Assist Mode

This mode exists in it's own menu and allows you to make several adjustments to the gameplay.
  • Multiple lives – each time you die you can resurrect from the beginning of the biome (this effectively already existed by quitting the game when you die, now it's just 'official'). You can choose between 1, 3, 7 or infinite lives. This is targeted for players who have involuntary movements or activity, such as muscle spasms, to have another chance if their run is ruined by something that is out of their control.
  • Auto-hit – automatically target nearby enemies with your primary melee weapon. The one time that the mobile version was ahead of us! This will automatically attack with your primary weapon, allowing players to just manage their secondary weapon and skills, reducing the need for rapid inputs.
  • Adjustable trap damage, enemy damage and enemy health in % increments, plus toggable options for slower parry window and trap speed. This is meant to allow specific, dare we say delicate, adjustment of the game’s challenge. For instance, the standard trap speed can make a Challenge Room require a series of rapid inputs to get through it successfully, which might not be doable for some players. But, if they find the rest of the gameplay balanced already, they can just change this specific part of the game and leave the rest as it is.
  • Option to instantly reveal the whole map.


NOTE: We wanted to add a game speed slider at the beginning but it just isn't possible without breaking the game.


I don't really know where to put this in the post so it's going here, but the "Show Kill Count" option is now enabled by default as we've seen way too many people who don't know that this exists, which is criminal.


[h3]Weapon Reworks[/h3]

This update also brings some reworks of older weapons, which were in pretty dire need of a tune-up:
  • Barnacle: new crit condition on bleeding or poisoned targets to make it less awkward (and bad).
  • Tentacle: lots of bug fixes. It should be way more reliable now.
  • Magnetic Grenade: full rework: it doesn't send enemies flying around (often in your head) but instead pulls them towards the explosion.
  • Biters pets: now way more resistant to attacks and effects that don't specifically target them.
  • Corrupted Power: now in % instead of a flat bonus. No other difference functionally speaking.
  • Wings of the Crow: lots of bug fixes.
  • Decoy: can be manually detonated after a few moments (it's not a grenade, but you don't have to awkwardly wait for it to explode if you don't want to)



[h3]Early-game item cost reduced[/h3]

The cost of most of the beginner items has been drastically cut, to make the early game less tedious for new players and to make new items a viable unlock option while trying to get your flask, gold and other useful upgrades. This should also make it easier to catch up on your item pool when starting a new save.


[h3]Negative feedback for Assist Mode during alpha & beta[/h3]
Thankfully we saw pretty much zero negative feedback on the general options that we're introducing. However, the Assist Mode has seen a certain amount of 'pushback'. Rather than ignoring this part of the community, we're going to address it here to be fully transparent with everyone.

The Assist Mode is designed to let people to enjoy the game who would otherwise be excluded from doing so.

We recognise that some people who don't 'need' the mode will use it anyway and as a result they will die less and won't learn from mistakes, which is a key part of roguelites.
However, we've put multiple messages explaining this in-game, so it's on them if they want to go ahead and use the Mode anyway.
It's also a single-player game, so people are free to play and enjoy the game as they want, and it doesn't affect anyone else's enjoyment of the game. The only area that it would have affected other players is the Daily Challenge leaderboard, and here we have prevented scores from being registered if players are using Assist Mode.

We are also not disabling achievements for players who use these options. As said above, the intent of this update is to open the game up to players who would otherwise be excluded from enjoying it. We are not going to make that possible and then take achievements away from those players.



If you’re a Dead Cells player who doesn’t need any of the content that we’re introducing in this update, don’t worry we have plenty of shiny new things to introduce to Dead Cells this year!


Cheers,
Matt, EE & MT