Oct 5, 2022

The Dead Cells 'Boss Rush' update is out now!

Dead Cells - mezzamazza55

Hey everyone,

The Boss Rush update is available to play right now! Face off against 3 or 5 bosses back-to-back to unlock new goodies. Oh, and look out for some new souped-up boss versions too...

We've made a little trailer to show off the highlights:

Plus, for the people who prefer visual/audio over text, I quickly whipped up a VLOG to showcase the content:

Here's the TLDR and then we'll get stuck into the details!

4 stages to fight through
- 3 bosses back-to-back
- 3 enhanced bosses back-to-back
- 5 bosses back-to-back
- 5 enhanced bosses back-to-back
New weapon, skill & mutation
8 skins
Customisable statue
New legendary affixes

How do you access the Boss Rush?

There is a new area, accessible through the basement door in Prisoner's Quarters, where you can also access the Training Room and the Tailor. Once you've gone through the basement door just follow the corridor until you come to the third door with the red boss head next to it.

Through this door, you'll find another 4 doors, leading to 4 different stages where you will fight:

3 bosses back-to-back
3 enhanced bosses back-to-back
5 bosses back-to-back
5 enhanced bosses back-to-back

What the hell are enhanced bosses?! Basically we've given them even more ways to kick your ass. Think extra limbs, healing powers, buddies to help them kill you - all the good stuff!

The bosses are randomly selected from the following tiers:

Tier 1 - Concierge, Conjunctivius, Mama Tick

Tier 2 - Time Keeper, The Giant, The Scarecrow

Tier 3 - Hand of the King, The Servants (just the final fight, not the entire tower!), The Queen

Spoiler Boss is not in the Boss Rush BUT it is on the list to add later, if possible.

The stages with 3 bosses back-to-back will pit you against one Tier 1 boss, then one Tier 2 and finally, you guessed it, one Tier 3. Simple!

The stages with 5 bosses follow a similar path, but here you'll be fighting two Tier 1 bosses, then two Tier 2s, then one Tier 3. Not quite so simple...

NOTE: You must have encountered a boss in a normal run for it to appear in the Boss Rush. You don't need to have killed it, just seen it.

There is a choice between Brutality, Tactics and Survival at the start of each stage - choosing one will automatically give you stats focused on the one you chose, plus a relevant amulet, and give you a choice of builds focused on the one you chose in the following room.

You'll also be able to choose mutations before you start the first boss fight.

Between each Tier stage you will enter a transition where there are shops, items, weapon upgrade/rerolls, mutation rerolls and health refills (depending on your BC level of course). So in a 3 boss run this area will appear after the Tier 1 and Tier 2 fight. In a 5 boss run it will appear after the two Tier 1 fights, then after the two Tier 2 fights.

New unlockables

There are more goodies to unlock as you progress through the stages, if you can of course!

New stuff will unlock depending on the length (3 bosses or 5 bosses), the mode (Normal bosses or Modified bosses), the difficulty (0+BC, 3+BC or 5BC) and your ability to flawless the entire run or not.

Yep, the 5-boss 5BC Flawless reward is going to be a bit hard to get!

Weapon - Glyph of Peril (Tacticsl): A ranged attack with 7 attacks in its combo. The more health that you're missing, the more of the combo unlocks. Critical hits will start after the third hit of the combo.

Skill - Taunt (Brutality): Taunt an enemy, making it relentessly pursue you for 20 seconds. In doing so, it drops its guard, so it takes 75% more damage from melee attacks during its pursuit.
I'll let you discover exactly what taunts the Beheaded uses, but I don't think you'll be disappointed...

Mutation - Wish (Colourless): The next weapon you pick up is legendary. Once chosen it cannot be removed (like the YOLO mutation).

Skins: There are 8 new skins to discover, with various barbarian/boss themes and some snazzy glowing parts.

Customisable statue: You've got a fan! They're making a grand statue of you as tribute, and as you progress through the Boss Rush, you'll be able to add shiny new elements to it. Just try not to let your head get too big!

New/updates legendary affixes

We're also adding more legendary affixes to flesh out our last update. These are:

Spartan Sandals: Super Bump - bumps stuff even further
Oil Sword: Oil on Kill (again, quite self explanatory: spreads oil on the ground on kill)
Flint: Instant Charge - all attacks are fully charged without needing to hold the button
Katana: Deflect Bullets - all uncharged attacks deflect bullet (but not grenades)
Killing Deck: Random Effect - every card applies a random debuff on targets (any kind of DoT, crowd controls, etc. with a few exceptions that wouldn't make sense like item-specific effects)
Money Shooter: Pay to Win - refund the shot's cost if it kills a target + innate super pierce. Can trigger multiple times if a shot kills several enemies.
Knockback Shield: Super Bump
Wave of Denial: Super Bump
Pollo Power: Miracle of Life - eggs hatch into chicks that attack nearby enemies

Full patchnotes are here.

Cheers,
Matt, EE & MT

Community Highlights:

@alm4nditte

K-BoNe

Vinceptix

Sep 19, 2022

Our next Dead Cells update "Boss Rush" is now in alpha testing - try it out!

Dead Cells - mezzamazza55

Hello,

We're back with another alpha for our next slab of content - the Boss Rush Update!

How does it work?

There is a new area, accessible through the basement door in Prisoner's Quarters where you access the Training Room and the Tailor - one you've gone through the basement door just follow the corridor until you come to the third door with the red boss head next to it.

Through this door, you'll find another 4 doors, leading to 4 different stages where you will fight:

3 bosses back-to-back
3 bosses back-to-back with modifiers
5 bosses back-to-back
5 bosses back-to-back with modifiers

What are modifiers, I hear you ask? Basically we've given the bosses even more ways to kick your ass. Think extra limbs, healing powers, buddies to help them kill you - all the good stuff!

The bosses are randomly selected from the following tiers:

Tier 1 - Concierge, Conjunctivius, Mama Tick

Tier 2 - Time Keeper, The Giant, The Scarecrow

Tier 3 - Hand of the King, The Servants (just the final fight, not the entire tower!), The Queen

Spoiler Boss is not available in the alpha and likely won't be available on release BUT it should™ arrive later.

The stages with 3 bosses back-to-back will pit you against one Tier 1 boss, then one Tier 2 and finally, you guessed it, one Tier 3. Simple!

The stages with 5 bosses follow a similar path, but here you'll be fighting two Tier 1 bosses, then two Tier 2s, then one Tier 3. Not quite so simple...

NOTE: For testing purposes, in the alpha you will have access to all bosses regardless of your progress in your current save. In the official release of the update, the bosses that you encounter in the Boss Rush will only be bosses that you have personally encountered at least once in-game.

There is a choice between Brutality, Tactics and Survival at the start of each stage - choosing one will automatically give you stats focused on the one you chose, and give you a choice of relevant builds in the following room.

New unlockables

There are more goodies to unlock as you progress through the stages, if you can!

New stuff will unlock depending on the length (3 bosses or 5 bosses), the mode (Normal bosses or Modified bosses), the difficulty (0+BC, 3+BC or 5BC) and your ability to flawless the entire run or not.

Yep, the 5 boss 5BC Flawless is going to be a bit hard to get!

Weapon - Glyph of Peril (Tactics/Survival): A ranged attack with 7 attacks in its combo. The more health that you're missing, the longer the combo. Critical hits will start after the third hit of the combo.

Skill - Taunt: Taunt an enemy, making it relentessly pursue you for 20 seconds. In doing so, it drops its guard, so it takes 75% more damage from melee attacks during its pursuit.
I'll let you discover exactly what taunts the Beheaded uses, but I don't think you'll be disappointed...

Mutation - Wish: The next weapon you pick up is legendary. Once chosen it cannot be removed (like the YOLO mutation).

Skins: There are 6 new skins to discover, with various barbarian/boss themes.

Customisable statue: You've got a fan! They're making a grand statue of you as tribute, and as you progress through the Boss Rush, you'll be able to add shiny new elements to it. Such humility!

New/updates legendary affixes

We're also adding more legendary affixes to flesh out our last update. These are:

Spartan Sandals: Super Bump - bumps stuff even further
Oil Sword: Oil on Kill (again, quite self explanatory: spreads oil on the ground on kill)
Flint: Instant Charge - all attacks are fully charged without needing to hold the button
Katana: Deflect Bullets - all uncharged attacks deflect bullet (but not grenades)
Killing Deck: Random Effect - every card applies a random debuff on targets (any kind of DoT, crowd controls, etc. with a few exceptions that wouldn't make sense like item-specific effects)
Money Shooter: Pay to Win - refund the shot's cost if it kills a target + innate super pierce. Can trigger multiple times if a shot kills several enemies.
Knockback Shield: Super Bump
Wave of Denial: Super Bump
Pollo Power: Miracle of Life - eggs hatch into chicks that attack nearby enemies

How to access the alpha:

Back up your save first. The alpha shouldn't affect your saves but better to be safe than sorry. 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 (link at the bottom of the post) - there are two channels called update31-alpha-discussion and update31-alpha-feedback specifically for these conversations, so please use them!

Bug reports can be sent to us with the following form to help us collect all information on bugs and crashes in one place, this helps us to fix them quicker! https://forms.clickup.com/f/2b318-1807/WG3GMB5KUFQB4XRAHX

We have some known issues already:

Long load time after the Queen. It'll be fixed in the next patch.
Glyph of Peril weapon lacks polish.
The exit text when you win a run should not be "Do you want to abandon the run?", obviously.
The alpha is only available on Windows, not Mac or Linux - we have a problem which should be fixed for beta.

Full patchnotes are here.

Hope you enjoy the new mode, we'll gather feedback for a week or two then come back with the beta :)

Cheers,
Matt, EE & MT

Aug 3, 2022

The 'Enter the Panchaku' update is live!

Dead Cells - mezzamazza55

Hey everyone,

We're back with our thirtieth update, 'Enter the Panchaku'!

To celebrate this milestone of 30 updates, we're releasing 30 NFTs that unlock exclusive content in the game. The release date for these is never, because we're not touching that stuff. Gotcha...

Here's the TLDR of the update:

panchaku and new 'flame head' Bobby outfit
rebalancing on weapons & items
rework of legendaries system
Soul Knight weapon and outfit
pet your pets
roadmap and Evil Empire/Motion Twin priorities

We've made a little trailer to go along with the update:

And here's a VLOG for people who don't like to read!

Finally, the full patchnotes are here as usual.

Let's get into it!

Panchaku & Bobby outfit

After numerous requests following the animated Bad Seed trailer, we're finally adding the panchaku to Dead Cells, with a new outfit inspired by Bobby Pills' trailers.
We already had a 'Bobby' skin, but now the iconic pink flame head is here to make it complete. You can stop pestering us now, or just move onto the next shiny thing you reprobates want.

Sorry for the potato quality, the 5MB limit on Steam just kills my gifs

The panchaku is simply two frying pans tied together with a piece of string, which crits on enemies facing you and has a slick combo with hits behind and all around you.
It can also reflect bombs and projectiles in the middle of the combo. So a slight upgrade on the Vorpan...

Item reworks

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 29 weapons and skills (and a mutation!) to rebalance the item pool.

Why do we do rebalancing? This isn't a multiplayer game after all...

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 or 3 weapons every time because they're OP, then you're going to get bored very quickly. And we don't want you to get bored of Dead Cells!

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 the buffs & nerfs:

Buffs:

Hard Light Sword and Pistol: slight damage buff to the sword and attack speed buff to the pistol
Hokuto's Bow: damage bonus buffed
Queen's Rapier: the delayed slice hits sooner
Maw of the Deep: attack speed buff
Wrecking Ball: first and last attack are faster + greatly reduced lock on Wrecking Ball's third and fourth attacks
Leghugger: now jumps on a nearby target before launching its reactivation attack + keeps its growth state across instances of the object in a run
Killing Deck: damage buff on the first 2 attacks
Hand Hook: now also crits when the thrown enemy hits another entity + removed the first hit + greatly reduced the lock of the last attack.
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
Cudgel: Bullets parried will now stun enemies as well.
Gilded Yumi rework:
- Reduced the ammo count to 2.
- Now has a 2-hit combo, which shoots the second arrow faster.
- Is now considered to be a Heavy Weapon.
- Increased the overall weapon speed.
- Increased the base damage, reduced the crit multiplier.
- Damage no longer gets split between hit enemies.
- Arrows now pierce all enemies.
- Bosses get dragged by the arrow more.
- Reduced the arrow's speed.
- No longer stuns in an AoE on hit.
- Can't roll ammo or pierce affixes anymore.

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
Barbed Tips: damage of each stack is reduced the more arrows there are in the enemy. 1 arrow = 40dmg, 2 arrows = 74dmg, 3 arrows = 104dmg, etc.

Legendary item change

Moving on to the legendary item change, which we’ve wanted to do for a while. For those who don’t know, legendary items are the gold-coloured items.

In the old system, their damage would scale off your two highest stats (Brutality, Tactics and Survival), which wasn’t intuitive with the stats system. Your average player usually just spread points between the off-colour stats to gain maximum health.

As the legendaries power was affected by your two highest stats, it meant that you would need to put points on only one of the stats that you weren't using to get maximum damage from legendaries.

Basically the whole thing wasn’t very clear.

It was also just not very interesting – the only thing that legendaries gave you was more damage, that was it. More damage is always good, but we wanted to make it better!

So to replace the old system, we're introducing legendary affixes (affixes are the tasty extra powers you get on items, like 60% damage to a bleeding enemy).

All the legendary affixes have been specifically added to certain weapons so that they each have a synergy with their item's gameplay. This way, they'll be making legendaries stronger than your typical weapon version by adding an extra, complimentary gameplay element instead of just upping the damage.

We've created a few brand new affixes as well as using some existing ones. There are a lot of legendary affixes in this list, so if you don't really care about specifics you should just scroll past!

Melee Weapons

Balanced Blade: Run Speed on Crit
Spite Sword: Poison Skin Area
Assassin’s Dagger: Mega Crit
Blood Sword: Double Stack
Twin Daggers: Run Speed on Crit
Broadsword: Global Shield on Kill
Shovel: Better Secrets
Cursed Sword: True Evil
Sadist's Stiletto: Super Back Damage
Swift Sword: Run Speed on Kill
Giant Killer: God Slayer
Shrapnel Axes: Fire Bullet
Seismic Strike: Death Root
War Spear: Run Speed on Crit
Impaler: Super Back Damage
Symmetrical Lance: Quad Damage Free & Ignore Global Shields
Rapier: Run Speed on Crit
Meat Skewer: Super Back Damage
Nutcracker: Death Root
Spartan Sandals: Fire Feet
Spiked Boots: Run Speed on Crit
Hayabusa Boots: Super Back Damage
Hayabusa Gauntlets: Mega Crit
Valmont's Whip: Mega Crit
Wrenching Whip: Bleed on Hit
Oiled Sword: Poison on Hit
Torch: Double Stack
Frantic Sword: Heal Mid Life
Flawless: Run Speed on Crit
Flint: Fire on Hit
Flawless: Run Speed on Crit
Tentacle: Poison on Hit
Vorpan: Fire on Hit
Flashing Fans: Bleed on Hit
Scythe Claw: Death Root
Rhythm n’ Bouzouki: Fire on Hit
Crowbar: Super Back Damage
Snake Fangs: Double Stack
Iron Staff: Frost Shield
Ferryman's Lantern (Melee): Fire on Hit
Hattori's Katana: Mega Crit
Explosive Crossbow (Melee): Death Freeze
Tombstone: Cascading Tomb
Oven Axe: Run Speed on Crit
Toothpick: Heavy Stun
Toothpick (Broken): Rebuild on Kill
Machete and Pistol: Bleed on Hit
Hard Light Sword (Sword): Mega Crit
Pure Nail: Death Worm
Bone: Run Speed on Crit
Abyssal Trident: Run Speed on Crit
Hand Hook: Bleed on Hit
Maw of the Deep: Triple Bullets
Bladed Tonfas: Run Speed on Kill
Wrecking Ball: Speed Ball
Queen's Rapier: Super Slice
Dagger of Profit: Run Speed on Crit
Gold Digger: Heavy Stun
Panchaku: Fire on Hit

Ranged Weapons

Multiple-nocks Bow: Double Bullets
Bow and Endless Quiver: Poison on Hit
Marksman's Bow: Heavy Stun
Sonic Carbine: Poison Bullet
Infantry Bow: Bleed on Hit
Quick Bow: Mega Crit
Ice Bow: Strong Ice
Heavy Crossbow: Super Pierce
Heavy Crossbow (Reload): Global Shield on Use
Repeater Crossbow: Super Pierce
Repeater Crossbow (Quiver of Bolts): Pierce
Ice Crossbow: Strong Ice
Ice Crossbow (Piercing Shot): Death Freeze
Explosive Crossbow: Super Pierce
Alchemic Carbine: Double Stack
Boomerang: Extra Ammo Few
Hemorrhage: Bleed Propagation
The Boy’s Axe: Extra Ammo Few
War Javelin: Fire Bullet
Hokuto’s Bow: Super Pierce
Nerves of Steel: Mega Crit
Throwing Knife: Bleed Propagation
Electric Whip: Super Back Damage
Firebrands: Double Stack
Ice Shards: Death Freeze
Pyrotechnics: Double Stack
Lightning Bolt: Global Shield on Kill
Fire Blast: Global Shield on Use
Frost Blast: Strong Ice
Magic Missiles: Super Pierce
Blowgun: Poison Cloud on Hit
Barrel Launcher: Death Fire
Ferryman’s Lantern (Soul Shot): Fire Bullet
Hard Light Gun: Double Stack
Killing Deck: Bleed on Hit
Gilded Yumi: Fire Bullet
Money Shooter: Super Pierce
Magic Bow: Double Bullets

Shields

Front Line Shield: Counter Attack
Cudgel: Long Stun
Punishment: Death Freeze
Knockback Shield: Death Root
Rampart: Frost Shield
Assault Shield: Heavy Stun
Bloodthirsty Shield: Double Stack
Greed Shield: Gold Damage Buff
Spiked Shield: Mega Crit
Parry Shield: Stun Shield
Force Shield: Frost Shield
Thunder Shield: Poison Shield
Ice Shield: Strong Ice

Deployable Traps

Double Crossb-o-matic: Super Pierce
Sinew Slicer: Bleed Propagation
Heavy Turret: Super Pierce
Barnacle: Poison Bullet
Flamethrower Turret: Double Stack
Cleaver: Double Stack
Wolf Trap: Ice on Stop
Crusher: Ice on Stop
Explosive Decoy: Run Speed on Kill
Emergency Door: Deployed Dmg
Tesla Coil: Oil and Fire on Destroy
Scavenged Bombard: Double Speed

Grenades

Powerful Grenade: Bigger Explosion
Infantry Grenade: Oil
Cluster Grenade: Echo
Magnetic Grenade: Echo
Stun Grenade: Long Stun
Ice Grenade: Strong Ice
Fire Grenade: Bigger Explosion
Root Grenade: Death Root
Oil Grenade: Death Fire
Swarm Grenade: Poison on Hit (yes, it applies to the biters’ attacks)

Powers

Death Orb: Double Speed
Tornado: Double Speed
Knife Dance: Bleed Poison
Corrupted Power: Global Shield on Use
Vampirism: Oil and Fire on Use
Tonic: Extended Duration
Grappling Hook: Fire on Use
Phaser: Poison on use
Corrosive Cloud: Double Stack
Lacerating Aura: Bleed on Hit
Wave of Denial: Oil and Fire on Use
Wings of the Crow: Global Shield on Use
Great Owl of War: Super Pierce
Lightspeed: Global Shield on Use
Giant Whistle: Echo
Telluric Shock: Global Shield on Kill
<Spoiler Item>: Run Speed on Kill
Smoke Bomb: Run Speed on Use
Mushroom Boi!: Poison Cloud on Hit
Lightning Rods: Fire on Stop
Scarecrow Sickles: Double Bullets
Ice Armor: White Walker
Serenade: Durability Up
Cocoon: Frost Shield
Face Flask: Oil and Fire on Use
Pollo Power: Death Worm
Leghugger: Bleed on Hit

Legendaries will always roll their legendary affix and they cannot be removed, rerolled or replaced.

Also just to be clear, we've removed the double stat scaling system, although legendaries will remain colorless in terms of scaling, which means that they scale off whichever of your stats has the highest value.

More legendary affixes will be coming in future updates, so keep your eyes peeled.

Oh and we're also adding an option in Custom Mode to allow 'legendary-only' runs:

Look at all that gooooold!

Soul Knight content

We're also introducing content from Soul Knight, 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. Each arrow that successively hits the same enemy does more damage to that enemy.
The Knight outfit adds the pint-sized adventurer and his oversized head as an option.

Pet the pet

The last bit of content we're adding is letting you pet the pets.

In transitions between biomes you just need to long press the interact button to show some love to your latest companion. You won't get any benefit from this, it's just something fun for us to add. I mean why wouldn't we add this!

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

Other additions

Reworked the Outfit Selection UI. It is now a grid displaying the icons of all the unlocked outfits, as well as an in-game preview.
Added Teleportation Monoliths before the exits leading to Forgotten Sepulcher.
Added an exit to Clock Tower in Graveyard, for cases where the player would get softlocked otherwise.
In Ramparts, prevented the exit leading to Conjunctivius from being locked behind a Breakable Ground.
In Prisoners' Quarters, if the player has the Spider Rune but not the Vine Rune, the passage to the Sewers door will now use a specific room. Yes, this is a very specific change, don't ask about it.
Weapons' icons on the HUD now fade away when their controls are locked.
Uniformized the different speed bonus feedbacks.
Made double tap input option for Dive Attack more reliable and consistent.
Talisman DoT Affixes now scale based on the highest tier stat, instead of the tier average.
Gold Gorgers now can't attack or teleport to the player if they didn't see the player at least once.

Bug fixes

Fixed Corrosive Cloud not triggering the Bleed Propagation affix.
Fixed Serenade sometimes losing its affixes on use.
Fixed Explosive Barrels not updating properly when not on screen.
Disabled gravity when picking up a scroll, to prevent a softlock when falling offscreen.
Fixed tier icons not displaying properly on colorless items.
Fixed the Bank Pop-up and the 1BC Pop-up overlapping.
Corrosive Cloud now correctly displays its synergy with Bleed.
Fixed the Cherry on the Cake bombs not dealing any damage to the player.
Added the missing world map transition of Distillery -> Lighthouse.
Fixed Conjunctivius sometimes shooting projectiles during the death animation.
Fixed the Hunter's Grenade not spawning back when thrown off a cliff, or when an enemy converted to elite fell of a cliff.
Fixed a crash when picking up an amulet with the Homunculus Rune in the Daily Challenge.
Fixed Mushroom Boi getting stuck in the dash animation after triggering the explosion.
Fixed Mutineers' melee attack not having the attack warning.
Fixed Invisibility not affecting the player's head or scarf.
Fixed Armored Shrimps moving while frozen.
Fixed the player getting stuck off-screen in some specific situations.
Fixed pets sometimes dying for no apparent reasons
Fixed the Leghugger not teleporting back to the player when too far away.
Fixed minimap refresh hiding part of the maps revealed by Explorer's Instinct.
Fixed Scrolls on the minimap not displaying their Stat icon, when triggering Explorer's Instincts.
Fixed mutations going higher and higher on the HUD every time the player changes the "place backpack next to weapons" option.
Fixed Queen sometimes getting stuck on the "Reality Slices" phase.
Fixed some powers and effects not working properly after going through a ZDoor, as well as their visual disappearing:
- Ice Armor's sprite.
- Cell Bonus FX.
- Lacerating Aura FX.
- Wings of the Crow FX.
Fixed elite Gold Gorgers using Elite Skills when transformed by the Hunter's Grenade.
Fixed Barbed Tips damage multiplier being applied one stack too early.
Fixed Two-Handed Weapons not properly generating their legendary affix.
Fixed the way DoT Effects damage scale was calculated, leading to some of them dealing less damage than intended.
Fixed Custom Heads being on the wrong layer after the player was thrown by the Queen.
Fixed DPS display on weapons not working properly with damage multipliers.
Fixed DPS display for the Bone.
Fixed options text getting out of the frame when opened on the main menu.

Roadmap

In case you missed our post the other week, we released the roadmap below. The basic idea is that we'll continue to add Dead Cells content into 2023 & beyond, and 2023 will be our biggest year since v1.0 was released!

This also raised the question of whether there'll ever be any new games coming out. Dead Cells keeps getting new content so we can't be working on anything else, right?

Well, we are.

Motion Twin, the creators of Dead Cells, have not been working on Dead Cells for years. Although they do retain creative control over Dead Cells and have final approval on every addition Evil Empire makes to the game.

Evil Empire is a separate studio made of ex-Motion Twin developers & some new blood, and we took over development of Dead Cells in 2019.

Motion Twin have been working on their next project since then, but we all still work in the same office so it's a close relationship. Evil Empire are also working on our own projects too, but Dead Cells remains the priority for us.

Essentially, don't worry, new games are coming!

Finally, if anyone is going to PAX West in September we'll be there to show off a sneak preview of the upcoming Boss Rush update.

Have a good one and we'll be back soon with news on the Boss Rush update!

Cheers,
Matt, EE & MT

Community highlights:

NNY666

@FlameAozora

@domxto

Jul 26, 2022

New changes for the current update 30 beta

Dead Cells - mezzamazza55

Hey all,

Just a short post on yet another patch for the beta - we're taking as much feedback as possible on board!

Here's the changes:

Balancing:

Removed the pushback on Rampart's force field.
The recovery after Wrecking Ball's 3rd hit and 4th hit has been greatly reduced i.e. you can dodge roll/jump much quicker after the hits. The 3rd attack can also be cancelled without losing your combo.
Full Life Damage is not a starred affix anymore.
Increased Barbed Tips initial damage.
Barbed Tips damage of each stack is reduced the more arrows there are in the enemy. 1 arrow = 40dmg, 2 arrows = 74dmg, 3 arrows = 104dmg, etc.
Removed Hand Hook's first hit and greatly reduced the lock of the last attack.
Added new Legendary Affix, exclusive to Serenade: Durability Up, the sword pet never expires. Please note that the only translations of this affix are in French or English right now.
Gilded Yumi rework:
- Reduced the ammo count to 2.
- Now has a 2-hit combo, which shoots the second arrow faster.
- Is now considered to be a Heavy Weapon.
- Increased the overall weapon speed.
- Increased the base damage, reduced the crit multiplier.
- Damage no longer gets split between hit enemies.
- Arrows now pierce all enemies.
- Bosses get dragged by the arrow more.
- Reduced the arrow's speed.
- No longer stuns in an AoE on hit.

Legendary Affix changes:

Double Crossb-o-matic: Super Pierce
Explosive Crossbow: Super Pierce
Heavy Crossbow: Super Pierce
Giant Whistle: Echo
Tornado: Double Speed
Spiked Boots: Run Speed on Crit
Cluster Grenade: Echo
Balanced Blade: Run Speed on Crit
Hank Hook: Bleed on Hit
Serenade: Durability Up

Level design:

Added decorations in the Panchaku Lore Room

Graphics & UI:

Weapons' icons on the HUD now fade away when their controls are locked.
Updated the credits.

Quality of life:

Made double tap input option for Dive Attack more reliable and consistent.
Added an angry eye on some animations, with the Bobby Outfit.

Bug fixes:

Fixed Scrolls on the minimap not displaying their Stat icon, when triggering Explorer's Instincts.
Fixed mutations going higher and higher on the HUD every time the player changes the "place backpack next to weapons" option.
Fixed the "Try 1BC" pop-up appearing when the player has already played 1BC at least once.
Fixed Challenge Portals graphics being messed up.
Fixed multiple crashes related to shader compilation.
Fixed being able to pet Serenade when holding it as a weapon.
Affixes now work on Leghugger and Mushroom Boi's attacks.
Fixed a crash when entering some biomes with the "secret zone visibility" option enabled.
Fixed Queen sometimes getting stuck on the "Reality Slices" phase.
Fixed some powers and effects not working properly after going through a ZDoor, as well as their visual disppearing:
Ice Armor's sprite.
Cell Bonus FX.
Lacerating Aura FX.
Wings of the Crow FX.
Fixed some sound effects getting randomly cut off. Hopefully it's fixed this time.
Fixed elite Gold Gorgers using Elite Skills when transformed by the Hunter's Grenade.
Fixed some fires and candles displaying as pink rectangles, not displaying at all, or displaying the wrong sprite.
Area effects that are directly triggered by Weapons, Grenades and Actives will now be properly affected by the source item's affixes.
Fixed Panchaku and Bobby Outfit not unlocking properly

EDIT: Known Bug that we are working to fix - Gilded Yumi can roll Pierce and Super Pierce affixes even though it now has baseline Super Pierce.

Let us know your thoughts in the Discord server or here in the comments :)

Cheers,
Matt, EE & MT

Jul 19, 2022

Update 30 heads into beta

Dead Cells - mezzamazza55

Hey all,

Update 30 has progressed from alpha to beta! If you don't know what we'll be adding in this update, go read the alpha post.

Here are the changes we've made for the beta (also in patchnotes on our website):

Important features:

Added unlocking conditions for the new content (Panchaku, Bobby Outfit and Soul Knight Content)

Balancing:

Buffed the damage of the Back Damage, Super Crit and Super Back Damage affixes.
Reduced the damage and tick rate of Barbed Tips.
Increased the damage and crit multiplier of Gilded Yumi.
The Hand Hook pull attack now comes out way faster, but has more lag to compensate.
Legendary Weapons no longer roll a guaranteed Starred Affix
Bullets parried by the Cudgel will now stun enemies as well.
Rampart's forcefield now pushes enemies away for its entire duration.

Graphics & UI:

Reworked the Outfit Selection UI. It is now a grid displaying the icons of all the unlocked outfits, as well as an in-game preview.

Music & SFX:

Added proper sound effects to the Panchaku.

Mods:

Custom Heads can now load custom atlases.
Added a new folder in the ModTools : ModHelperSkin. It contains a full custom outfit with differently colored points instead of a proper model, to help with making outfit mods.
We also provided a json file containing all the tracks of all the joints, for all the animations in the game. This data can potentially be used to roughly recreate the 2D animations.

Bug fixes:

Corrosive Cloud now correctly displays its synergy with Bleed.
Prevented Death Root from triggering on non-mob entities.
Fixed the Tailor's Room decorations being offset from the center.
Removed the Flawless Outfits displaying two times in the Outfit Selection UI.
Fixed a crash when breaking the Bank's Golden Doors.
Fixed the bombs from the 'Cherry on the Cake' modifier in Custom Mode not dealing any damage to the player.
Added the missing world map transition of Distillery -> Lighthouse.
Fixed Conjunctivius sometimes shooting projectiles during the death animation.
Fixed the Hunter's Grenade not spawning back when thrown off a cliff, or when an enemy converted to elite fell of a cliff.
Fixed a crash when picking up an amulet with the Homunculus Rune in the Daily Challenge.
Fixed Mushroom Boi getting stuck in the dash animation after triggering the explosion.
Fixed Mutineers' melee attack not having the attack warning.
Fixed Invisibility not affecting the player's head or scarf.
Fixed Armored Shrimps moving while frozen.
Fixed the player getting stuck off-screen in some specific situations.
Fixed pets sometimes dying for no apparent reason.
Fixed Magic Bow and Scarecrow's Sickles interacting weirdly when reflected by the Queen.
Fixed the Leghugger not teleporting back to the player when too far away.
Fixed minimap refresh hiding parts of the map revealed by Explorer's Instinct.

How to access the beta:

NOTE: Playing the beta will lock your chosen save slot to update 30. You won't be able to go back to update 29 with this save slot during the entire duration of the beta. However, your progress in the beta will be automatically merged into the main game when we release update 30 officially.

If you want to try out the beta and don't know how then first BACKUP YOUR SAVE FILE, then follow these instructions:

Go to your Steam game library.
Right click on Dead Cells and click "properties".
Select the tab "Betas".
In the first dropdown box select "Beta".
Click close and wait for the upload to finish downloading.
Start playing.

You can leave any feedback here or on our official Discord - there are two channels called update30-beta-discussion and update30-beta-feedback. We also have a bug report form specific to this beta.

Cheers,
Matt, EE & MT