Once you’ve unlocked all of the clever Metroid-style abilities you’re eventually able to move unrestricted through Dead Cells’ darkest recesses to uncover its skimpy, but fun, bits of story and cleverly hidden game references in secret areas. It’s meant to be replayed dozens of times, unlocking another small but significant fragment of the broad skillset with each new artifact you earn. And though it may sting when you have to say goodbye to those perfect turrets that helped you progress further than ever before - the ones that set victims ablaze and do double damage to burning enemies in tandem - or the tens of thousands of gold you’ve collected on a particularly bountiful run, the actual progression comes from unlocking buffs, skills, and weapons between each run that never go away - no matter how often you thrust your face into walls of spikes while trying to set a new land speed record in the Ancient Sewers.ĭead Cells’ movement and combat encourages you to put it all on the line to get a little farther. And just when I thought I’d dredged the best from that pool, in the very next run a shiny new toy would drop with glittering fanfare and I’d race to bank it with The Collector.

You simply don’t know what you’re going to find, because it could be anything from a huge pool of equipment that’s delivered with perfect pacing.

It’s what makes every run different enough to be consistently tense and surprising and what challenges the notion you’ve seen it all when you’re dozens of runs through. “The placement and order of its levels are Dead Cells’ skeletal frame, but the ever-changing layouts and enemy and item placements are the blood that pumps through its heart.

Dead cells free