One of the best roguelikes on PC is getting a farewell of sorts this week. Twitchy slashfest Dead Cells has received its latest major update, introducing new enemies, fresh weapons, and a few mutations. Unfortunately, all of this new stuff is very cursed. In other words, it all plays into the game's “cursed” status effect, a spell that causes you to be killed if you take even a single hit. You'll probably die a few times as a result of this update, which is a fitting finale for this fast-paced jar-smashing game. You can see the new features in the trailer below.
Watch on YouTube
Usually, you’ll incur “cursed” status by agreeing to open cursed chests in a risk-reward gamble for good gear. It’s a Faustian bargain that drops a number on your head—kill that many enemies to lift the curse. But if you take even the slightest bit of damage, you’re doomed. With this latest update, there are new ways to catch and exploit the curse. Enemies like the Doom Bringer and Curser will curse you with their attacks. And a new “cursed vial” will restore your health indefinitely, but you’ll also gain a stack of curses with every sip. There’s also a mutation that increases your damage by 30% if you’re cursed.
The new creatures won’t just appear randomly like other enemies. They’ll only appear in biomes that are marked as “cursed.” You’ll see a special skull before you enter the area to indicate this, which will help you decide whether to confront them or take another route. On the plus side, all the gear dropped in those enchanted biomes will be higher-level. There’s also other stuff in the update, like new heads that you can customize your character with, and new routes you can use on your runs. I won’t go into everything, you can see the details for yourself in the patch notes.
While this is the final update as far as special features go (aptly titled “The End is Near”), developers Evil Empire say there will still be minor bug fixes in the future. They've been working on this latest blast of goodness for a while now. We've known about it since at least February, as the studio reportedly ended Dead Cells to focus on a new game. We've since learned that this new game is the co-op roguelike Windblown . The trade-off was a decision former Dead Cells lead designer Sébastien Benard called a “stupid move” out of frustration, but it's not particularly unusual for studios to move on to new projects in this way. Benard later apologized for his harsh words but explained his thoughts. (Benard was working at Motion Twin when they created the game, but has since moved on to Evil Empire as their de facto maintainer).
When I first reviewed Dead Cells , I called it “incredibly fast when it needs to be, challenging without being frustrating, and full of edgy, deadly toys.” Eight years and 35 updates later, it’s even more so. It’s a phenomenal game. In the endless butter churning of video game news, people can often see the mention of a game’s latest update as being done through a mortal lens, a corrupt “dead game” mentality that feeds the anxiety of an industry (and an audience) obsessed with games-as-a-service. I hope that doesn’t happen here. There will be people who pick up Dead Cells years later and fall madly in love with its speed, fury, and playfulness. There will be people who return to it again and again. No one says “dead movie” or “dead book.” And while “dead” is 50 percent of this game’s title, the series is unlikely to be as dead as the flaming-headed hero who carries it.