Early Access rogue-like Metroidvania title Dead Cells has received a hefty new update that adds two new biomes, a new boss, 4 new unique enemies and reorganizes the world in preparation for the final release. You can download it now and re-immerse yourself in Motion Twin’s sadistic (yet beautiful) 2D side-scroller.
The Brutal Update changes a lot more than the above though. It does away with the old stats of Strength/Skills/Health system and adds Brutality/Tactic/Survival instead. Brutality (red) will affect all your weapons, Tactic (purple) affects all your active skills and Survival (green) will affect all shields.
So if you decide to level up Brutality, it will affect the damage of all red items while leveling up Tactic will level up the damage of purple items and reduce the cooldown of active skills. That’s only scratching the surface of the update though so make sure to check out some of the patch notes below for more information and the full patch notes here.
Brutal Update
Important features
- The world has changed. We’re now preparing the final form of the game. Most levels have been updated to reflect this, including their difficulty, or their location on the world map.
- The Watcher boss is now a mid-game boss, while the Assassin new boss becomes the final encounter. Note that the current game ending still isn’t the final one: we plan to add the real game nemesis in a later update.
- 2 new biomes have been added: the infamous Clock Tower and the mysterious Slumbering Sanctuary. Both include new enemies and loots.
- The old tier system (ie. Strength/Skills/Health) has been replaced by Brutality / Tactic / Survival.
– Brutality (red): includes all weapons (except shields)
– Tactic (purple): include all active skills
– Survival (green): include all shields - Some items (weapons or skills) are Dual colors, which means they can rely on 2 different stats, and use the highest value. You may also encounter random Colorless items: these ones will always use your best stat.
- Here are the effects of these new 3 stats when you augment them:
– Brutality (red): raise all red items damage, add +18% life
– Tactic (purple): raise all purple items damage, reduce all active cooldowns
– Survival (green): raise all green items damage, add +40% life - Your level-up decisions are much more important than ever. Level up scrolls have been changed. You may find “classic” Power Scrolls that allow you to add +1 to any tier among 3, or Double Scrolls that only allow you to augment 1 stat among 2 (randomly chosen). Single forced scrolls are no longer a thing.
- The way item stats/affixes are generated has been changed:
– based on their level, all offensive items (ie. item that deals damage) now have a “Damage +X%” stat, while all non-offensive items (ie. all other items) now have a “All damage received -X%” stat.
– “Tier +1” affixes on Weapons and Skills are now only found from very specific sources (Treasures or shops) and are to be considered rare.
– Talismans have a guaranteed “Tier +1/+2/+3”, on item level III or more. - The Collector can no longer upgrade items using Cells. For now, his only role is to unlock new content. A whole new upgrade mechanic will come back in the next update, which should come shortly after this one!