Depending on the action or enemy, there’s a chance for legendary loot drops, which are to be treated as special, as it rare for it to happen. With the right set of patience, skill, and weapons elites are not as big of a problem as they seem. Sometimes you’ll encounter an elite enemy, which is a buffed normal enemy that’s able to summon more of its kind. As enemies litter the level, you can use the right stick on the controller to look in all four directions around you, to see what dangers lie ahead, or hopefully secrets. It’s not long after that you’ll have a newer, better sword, and be throwing ice grenades alongside a wolf trap that holds enemies in place while you hit them with your crossbow that’s part bow and part shotgun. You’ll have a lot at your disposal: At first you’ll only have a rusty sword and your choice of a bow or a shield. For enemies that are about to attack, they have an exclamation point tell over their heads. The back and forth of combat is something you learn over a (short) period of time. The way all the weapons are handled is so well done. Grenades have cool down timers, but are in infinite supply. Most of the game is melee focused, but for things like bows, they have ammo you need to concern yourself with. The weapon variety of what drops keeps things fresh, and there’s rarely something you don’t want to try out or use unless it is somehow inferior. The first weapon is one you don’t realize right away, and that’s a downward slam from a jump that can devastate enemies later in the game. Levels have branching paths, but you’ll always end up in some of the same areas.ĭead Cells has combat and flow down to a science. Dead Cells has three bosses carefully spaced between its three acts, and their order is all the same. It’s important to know that the level layout and item placement are the most random and procedural elements of the game. And this is rather easy to do after a few short runs. For those new to roguelikes, or ones that don’t like them do their reliance on death: death is not a setback if you at least can complete one area and deposit cells into a perk or upgrade. This is a skill-based game, and finally one where RNG isn’t the biggest enemy. It is possible to beat the game, but except for respites in-between levels, there are no saves or checkpoints to cradle you. Thankfully, Motion Twin has made this possible with an excellent gameplay loop: fight, collect orbs (known as cells), and survive as long as you can so that you can cash in your cells towards upgrades, die, repeat. Making a new game out of two worn genres like Metroidvanias and roguelikes is no easy task. Now with the “1.0” build, I’m confident in saying that it’s still special, a prime example of Early Access done right, and one of the finest games of the year. When I previewed this last year, I knew it was something special. If you didn’t know, this has been on Steam Early Access for the past year and change. Dead Cells is a first of its kind roguevania, and while the idea of mashing up these genres seems a bit strange, it works incredibly well.