Dead Cells Update 21 Alpha is Live, Malaise and Colors Reworked

Motion Twin and Evil Empire have big plans for Dead Cells in early 2021 when the next paid DLC, Fatal Falls, releases. However, its update for this month is now in alpha and there are some pretty big changes in-bound. Chief among them is a rework of Malaise.

Malaise is a punishing mechanic that appears in the Castle before the final battle – filling up the meter will cause the player to die instantly. In 4/5 Boss Cell difficulty, every enemy can inflict Malaise, making it super frustrating and encouraging players to kite and run away than fight. The new version of Malaise works differently – it fills over time (and pauses in certain rooms) and will make enemies more dangerous when full.

This means they’ll deal increased damage, move faster, randomly spawn around the player and even turn into Elites. Depending on the number of enemies alive in a biome, the contamination rate can be slowed. If there are only 10 percent of enemies remaining, then that biome has been “cleansed.”

Colors are also being revamped with Mutations like Soldier Resistance and Berserker now scaling with Survival instead of Brutality while Predator, Scheme and Initiative will scale with Brutality instead of Tactics. Certain weapons like the Broadsword, Symmetrical Lance, Rhythm n’ Bouzoki and more now longer have “red” scaling while other like the Flashing Fans don’t scale from Tactics. There’s quite a lot to go through so check out the full patch notes here.

In terms of new content, the Katana is finally coming to the game along with a new enemy – the Demolisher – and four new Mutations. Stay tuned for more details on a release date in the coming weeks.