Feb 8, 2023

Return to Castlevania DLC release date announced and first glimpse of gameplay!

Dead Cells - mezzamazza55

Hey everyone,

You've waited long enough to know the release date of the Return to Castlevania DLC, we said Q1 2023 and we're already in February, so here it is!

But first let's explore an essay about what's going on in the game industry today. We strongly feel that in the current climate of global titans and small independent studios, that we can extrapolate...

6th March! It's 6th March OK.

Here's a short gameplay trailer to get your teeth into:

So what you saw there is about 5% of the content on offer, there's still loads for you to discover in March, and keep an eye out for more reveals in the future. That should have been your first true glimpse of the boss fights as well, which we think look pretty damn good, if we do say so ourselves...

You'll have hopefully recognised the iconic Vampire Killer track at the end - if you didn't then go listen to the old soundtracks right now! I'll remind you that we have 51 of the original Castlevania tracks in this DLC, with 12 reimagined by our resident musician Yoann "Valmont" Laulan in his Dead Cells style. If that's not reason enough to check out this DLC then I don't know what is!

If you haven't wishlisted it yet, here's a handy link for you:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2101430/Dead_Cells_Return_to_Castlevania/

That's not all, there's a couple more bits of Dead Cells news!

Dead Cells board game

Yep, we've decided to bring high octane Dead Cells action to the board game world! Dead Cells: The Rogue-Lite Board Game will be coming to Kickstarter this Spring: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/scorpionmasque/dead-cells-the-rogue-lite-board-game

It will be a cooperative, rogue-lite metroidvania inspired experience, where you explore the ever-changing island of Dead Cells as a group. Yeah, yeah, I know, you're getting a co-op Dead Cells experience in a board game and not the video game, don't shoot the messenger...

Players will have to choose their path carefully within ruthless biomes and face Malaise-infected enemies or die trying. Each death is a chance to mutate into something far more powerful and go further every run. Explore. Kill. Die. Mutate. Repeat. So it's a pretty faithful representation of the video game, right.

The team behind it is Scorpion Masqué, a multiple award-winning publisher with a strong expertise in legacy board games, that has been joined by Kaedama, a group of veteran and decorated designers (7 Wonders, Draftosaurus, Cyclades, The Loop) to bring their vast experiences to the design of this board game. We're confident that they're building a game that remains faithful to the Dead Cells style while translating well into the world of board games. We don't want to release something half-baked just for the sake of it!

If you want more info, they've released a blog post here, go check it out.

New Dead Cells wiki

Finally, some seriously dedicated and kind folks from the Dead Cells discord banded together to move the Dead Cells wiki from Fandom to Wiki.gg - https://deadcells.wiki.gg/wiki/Dead_Cells_Wiki

Without getting too into the details, Wiki.gg offers fewer adverts, faster and better editing, better looking pages and great admin support. What's not to like?!

However, Fandom will still appear as the top result when searching for anything wiki related. You can find the new wiki easily by adding "wiki.gg" at the end of your search or by simply bookmarking the new wiki.

The Fandom wiki won't get updates from the experienced editors anymore, so please don't rely on it for up-to-date advice and head over to the wiki.gg site. Thanks to everyone who helped out with this project!

That's all for now, speak to you all again very soon :)

Cheers,
Matt, EE & MT

Dec 8, 2022

Castlevania is back! Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania DLC coming Q1 2023!

Dead Cells - mezzamazza55

Hi everyone,

After almost a year of keeping quiet, and we still can't believe that we get to say this, but our next DLC "Return to Castlevania" is coming in Q1 2023!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2101430/Dead_Cells_Return_to_Castlevania/
Wishlist it now!

Yep, one of the biggest, if not THE biggest, inspirations behind Dead Cells is being reimagined in our fast-paced, frenetic gameplay with our most ambitious DLC to date.

Somehow we managed to convince KONAMI to let us recreate this truly iconic pillar of gaming, and we have loved every minute of crafting our very own love letter to the granddad of Dead Cells, bringing the Castlevania series back to its 2D action roots. We hope that we have done justice to the game that inspired a thousand more and it has been a ridiculous privilege to work on this project.

Anyway, that's enough fanboying, let's get on with the post!

First up is a brand new animated trailer to celebrate the DLC, courtesy of Bobby Pills:

What's in the DLC?

You'll strike out on an adventure through the spooky outskirts and candle-lit interior of Dracula's Castle in two new biomes, where you'll wield iconic weapons such as the Vampire Killer, Throwing Axe & Holy Water against classic enemies like mermen, bone throwers & haunted armors on your warpath to vanquish Dracula himself. Three epic boss fights await you throughout the haunted Castle, no prizes for guessing who one of them is!

The famous Richter Belmont and Alucard will be by your side in a new storyline, helping you to navigate the maze of Dracula’s Castle and providing you with strong weapons (sometimes willingly, sometimes not). However, where there is good there is evil, so watch out for powerful foes who will try everything in their power to stop you from reaching the throne room!

If it wasn't already obvious, we've taken great care in creating that unmistakable Castlevania atmosphere. You'll find secret rooms, beautiful paintings and of course, chicken legs in the walls. OK, the chicken legs were already in the walls but we won't tell anyone if you don't. Oh and we hope you like the moon because that sucker is everywhere!

Behind all of this, you can listen to a full in-game soundtrack of more than 60 Castlevania tunes, both original and reimagined. Full means full - we've got Vampire Killer, Bloody Tears, Divine Bloodlines, all the hits!

How much is it?

The DLC will be $9.99 or equivalent. Yes, this is an increase from our usual price of $4.99 for a DLC, but this reflects the fact that the scope of this DLC is quite a lot bigger than previous DLCs, as well as the inclusion of the Castlevania IP.

We'll be back with a lot more information as we get closer to the release date, but in the meantime I'm just going to leave another link to the DLC store page here in case you want to add it to your wishlist...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2101430/Dead_Cells_Return_to_Castlevania/

Cheers,
Matt, EE & MT

Nov 15, 2022

Fancy helping us test some new Dead Cells content in December?

Dead Cells - mezzamazza55

Hey everyone,

We're once again asking for some intrepid Dead Cells players to test some exciting, shiny-new and very chunky Dead Cells content and help us get some final polish on it. We will be asking for feedback and there will likely be some game-breaking bugs and weird crashes, you have been warned!

NOTE: People who applied after our Discord message a few weeks ago do not need to apply again!

If you'd like to take part then please fill in the form using the link at the end of this post. You will need to provide your full name, email and Steam profile name - we'll only use those details strictly to contact you about the beta, but if it makes you uncomfortable to give us that information then unfortunately you won't be able to take part. However, we've done this three times now and never had any problems, so you'll be in safe hands 🙂

You'll also need to sign an NDA before we start, then not share any details of the content with anyone outside the testing group until we release the content. If you do, we'll come after you with the giant Frantic Sword we keep in the office. Only half joking...

Applications are open until the end of November, then testing would begin around mid-December. We will not send anyone any messages before the end of November/start of December, so don't worry if you don't have any contact from us before then.

You can apply here: https://forms.clickup.com/2460712/f/2b318-21862/ION7S0V1385HHFV92D

Thanks in advance to everyone who wants to take part!

Cheers,
Matt, EE & MT

Nov 7, 2022

The Everyone is Here Vol. II update is out now!

Dead Cells - mezzamazza55

Hey everyone,

We're back with another indie crossover update - Everyone is Here Vol. II! We've added more weapons, skills and skins from our favourite indie games, so thanks to all the studios that let us add a piece of their creations to Dead Cells. Watch out for a bundle going live in the next few hours, more on that below...

So, who's in the update?

Terraria

I'm not sure if we can really call Terraria an indie anymore, but they definitely started as one! In any case, we're introducing 'The Guide' and the heavenly sword Starfury!

Striking enemies with this gloriously pink sword causes fragments of stars to fall from the sky, dealing critical hits to other enemies around you. The drawback is that it's a relatively slow and static weapon, but chuck a few dodge rolls in there and you'll be fine.

Shovel Knight

Yeah yeah, we know we've already got a shovel in Dead Cells... But luckily the King Scepter exists, so Shovel Knight will be shoulder bashing your enemies to launch himself into the air, then spinning around the screen drilling enemies into the ground with critical hits. Bouncing on an enemy let's you charge again, so see how long you can keep the chain going!

We needed to make it a bit tricky to keep hitting enemies from above as it could be too easy to cheese enemies with it (cough Pure Nail cough), so the movement is quite sensitive to make it hard to master.

Hotline Miami

Breaking down doors and pummelling the dazed enemies on the other side just got even more fun! Jacket and his trusty Baseball Bat are swinging into Dead Cells, with not one, not two, but three different masks.

The Baseball bat crits on stunned enemies, so you're basically required to hit enemies while they're down... Look out for the damage number VFX pulled from Hotline Miami too!

Katana ZERO

Another head scratcher for us - we've already got a majestic katana in-game so what could Subject ZERO possibly bring to Dead Cells? Well, simply put, the answer is throwing stuff at people!

Throwable Objects stun your enemies, allowing you to close the distance and get some shots in, or give you time to charge the katana's dash attack... You've only got 3 charges of throwable stuff, so you'll need to kill enemies to refill your stash.

Slay the Spire

Translating a deckbuilding card game into Dead Cells was pretty tricky but, after several days of tearing out their hair, the devs managed it.

The Diverse Deck translates each of the 4 classes from Slay the Spire into one complex skill. You will initially gain a passive power from one class. You can play with this passive for as long as you like, then activating it provides a one-off boost effect, and the skill moves on to the next class.

You will start with Barricade, which gives you an amount of permanent bonus health for the period that this 'class' is in play. Each successful parry grants bonus health for a short period of time. On activation, all current bonus health is removed and damage is dealt depending on the quantity removed. Then the skill moves on to Catalyst.

Catalyst makes your melee attacks poison the enemies they hit. On activation, nearby enemies lose all their damage-over-time stacks, and are dealt the remaining damage of these effects in one blow.

Next up is Electrodynamics, which creates a lightning orb that circles around you, dealing electric damage on impact with enemies. Each time you use the skill that you have in your other slot, an additional orb appears. On activation, all your active orbs are destroyed and one lightning strike hits a nearby enemy for each orb destroyed that way. After this, the skill moves on to the final class...

Foresight lets you avoid the first instance of damage every few seconds. On activation, you become immune to all sources of damage for a period of time, then the skill goes back to Barricade and the cycle keeps going.

It all sounds a bit complicated but in practice it's pretty intuitive!

Risk of Rain

Last, but definitely not least, one of the great roguelites of the last few years is arriving in the form of The Commando wielding the Laser Glaive!

The Laser Glaive is irresistibly drawn to enemy after enemy, rebounding around the screen dealing damage to as many foes as possible. It gains damage after each extra enemy it hits and will start dealing crits after hitting multiple enemies. Not bad for crowd control...

Where do I get all this?!

The book of clues in the Prisoner's Quarters has mysteriously gained new pages - figure out these new riddles then complete the challenges to unlock the outfits.

Just like last time, bizarre-looking lore rooms have appeared throughout the island, containing these strange & powerful objects from other worlds...

Bundle

We're running a complete-the-set bundle with all the games included (except Terraria & Hotline Miami) for just one week! It's right here so if you're missing a couple of games in your library or you have a friend who you want to get into some great indie games then check it out!

If you want the complete details of everything in the update, with bug fixes and all that stuff, then go check out the full patchnotes on our site.

We're also aware of a couple of issues which we're working on a hotfix for:

Crash with Diverse Deck in custom mode
Glow issue with some outfits and Assault Shield
Generation issue with campfire lore room
Crash when using key to unlock Cavern biome

That's it for now, this update was a ton of fun to work on, so we hope you like it as much as we liked creating it :D We can't quite believe that this insane line-up of games all allowed us to pay a little tribute to them in Dead Cells, you've gotta love the indie community!

We haven't forgotten about adding more 'pure' Dead Cells content, that adventure will continue in 2023 and keep an eye out for some news in December...

Cheers,
Matt, EE & MT

Community Highlights:

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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:

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