Architect Recommends: Dead Cells (Patreon)

I’m usually a bit hesitant to recommend Early Access games because they’re a risk for people to buy, but man am I impressed with Dead Cells.

For those not in the know, it’s kind of a hybrid between a metroidvania and a rougelike, and those genres fit together way better than I thought they would. Each run starts off with you getting some random gear and trekking out into a randomised series of levels, killing enemies, getting newer slightly more stabby swords, you know the drill, classic rougelike stuff. But at certain points during your progression, you unlock metroidvania esque “keys” like the ability to summon vines, teleport and other things I’m not good enough to find out about yet.

These upgrades open up a variety of new paths through the existing levels, leading to secrets, optional challenges and even completely new levels like a sewer accessible from the first zone, complete with totally unique enemies and events.

And that’s what I like about dead cells, whilst its 2D platformer combat is nothing we haven’t seen before, it’s supplemented with lots of secret hunting for new weapons, levels and routes which add some much needed longevity to the game. There’s even special gates which close after a certain amount of time has passed, cutting you off from some cool loot. No new player will ever get to them in time, but experienced players can speedrun their way through the familiar early zones to get the goods, allowing them to test their mastery whilst also avoiding the trudge through easy early zones that many rougelikes suffer from.

Perhaps my only complaint with dead cells relates to this, however. You won’t unlock any alternate routes, cool weapons or means of interacting with a variety of level features until a good few hours in, and until that point you’re really only playing half the game. This is compounded by the fact that the starter pool of gear is pretty boring, comprising mostly token changes to the default sword, bow and shield. Things quickly ramp up once you’ve collected enough cells to start getting good gear and are good enough to score some extra abilities, but until then the game is merely a passable roguelike platformer, rather than the truly unique blend it actually is.

Besides that one complaint, however, the rest of Dead Cells just screams polish, movement is fluid, responsive and feels great, the difficulty level is expertly balanced to be frequent but not frustrating and the slightly darksoulsian theme is on point, with the environments in particular looking gorgeous. 

Dead Cells is a pretty easy recommendation for anyone who’s even slightly into action platformers and probably worth a consideration for everyone else too, though if the price is a bit too steep for your blood, I’d wait until the game is finished and give it a second look.

Dead Cells is available from steam for £21.99 or your regional equivalent.