TL;DR:
- Alpha for update 21 is available.
- Malaise has been reworked.
- Colours have been changed, with a re-focus on their primary identity.
- Backpack will now be a meta upgrade and not dependent on two-handed weapons
- 4 new mutations, 3 are tied to the new backpack.
- The much requested Katana has finally been added to the game.
- New Mob, found in the distillery in 0BC and in some other levels in higher BCs
- The most ridiculous skin ever done in DC, and 4 slightly less ridiculous outfits.
Hello everyone,
We hope you’re doing well in these times of uncertainty. On our side, we’ve been busy with the next DLC (see the announcement here) as well as spending a fair bit of time cleaning the code behind the game to make it easier to maintain in the long run.
However, we’ve also been working on the next update which will mainly be focused on reworking the Malaise, the 4/5BC mechanic, as the current version is often called out as detrimental to the overall experience. We’re aware that the new implementation isn’t perfect, however, we think it’s time to get it in public alpha and keep improving it with your help.
So, if you want to access the alpha go ahead and follow the instructions below. If you'd just like to see what's going to be arriving in the update, skip ahead:
- Go to your Steam game library.
- Right click on Dead Cells and click "properties".
- Select the tab "Betas".
- In the first dropdown box select "Alpha - Not for the faint hearted".
- Click close and wait for the upload to finish downloading.
- Start playing.
Before going into the detail of everything that has been added/changed in the update, please remember that the major changes are a work in progress and are likely to be tweaked. The list below is the 'highlights', for full detail check out the patchnotes. Anyway, let's get to the meaty stuff...
Malaise rework
The Malaise bar is still there, but now it fills with time (game time - which means it won’t fill in lore rooms, merchants, treasure rooms, etc.) rather than when you’re hit.
It also doesn’t destroy your health at 10% once you reach 10 malaise points anymore. Instead, enemies become more and more dangerous as your Malaise bar fills, dealing more damage, moving and detecting you faster. Mobs will randomly spawn around you, and some mobs will unexpectedly transform into Elites (without the random skill though).
The malaise contamination rate is tied to the number of enemies still alive in the level, the fewer enemies, the less quickly your malaise bar will fill. When only 10% of the enemies are left alive, the biome is considered "Malaise cleared". Easy right?
Colour changes
A lot of item and mutation colour changes have been made too, specifically designed to re-focus each stat on its primary identity:
- Tactics keeps all things related to ranged gameplay: turrets & ranged weapons, with some utility and damaging spells to support it. Items that don't fit in that category but have poison or electricity gameplay will still dual scale with Tactics (e.g. Sadist's Stiletto, a knife that crits on poison targets, is not a turret or ranged weapon but has poison gameplay elements - so it will still scale with Tactics).
- Brutality keeps its focus on fast melee weapons and everything related to jumping into the fray. Grenades stay mostly red. Non-melee weapons that have fire or blood gameplay will dual scale with Brutality.
- Survival keeps its focus on crowd control, survivability, shields and slow, heavy melee weapons. Also supported by heavy damage skills with the long cooldown that goes with them. Unrelated weapons with root or ice gameplay will dual scale with Survival.
You can find the full changelog here, including the various nerfs and buffs coming with those changes.
Also, the health scaling of Survival and Brutality has been reduced. It’s not really significant without a high scroll count, so it will only impact the mid/late game of BC3+ players. Tactics got a slight buff, so there will be less difference between Survival’s hp pool and Tactic’s hp pool.
Updated backpack
The backpack will now be independent of two-handed weapons, so we’ve been working to make it less awkward to use and more customisable.
You can now empty your backpack by holding the use button, and you access your backpack storage when taking an item on the floor by pressing your secondary weapon button (Y on Xbox controller for instance).
In the video settings, you will also find an option to set the backpack slot opacity to your convenience, as well as an option to place it in the middle of the weapon and skills slots instead of to the right.
4 New mutations
3 new mutations have been added to go along with the new backpack:
- Acrobatic Preparation*: Attacking with a ranged weapon also attacks with the ranged weapon in your backpack. Roll to reload. (Tactics).
- Porcupine Backpack: Rolling through enemies attacks them with the melee weapon stored in your backpack. (Brutality)
- Tortoise Wheel: Rolling parries attacks and projectiles with the shield stored in your backpack. (Survival)
The fourth mutation added, Fatal Cadence, increases your attack speed when you switch between the primary and secondary slot. It’s specifically designed for two-handed weapons, but can also be used with others.
As a side note, the two-handed weapons can now have different affixes on each slot.
*All names are placeholders until we find the time to think of better ones!
New weapon
With Christmas just around the corner, we thought we had to fulfill long-lasting requests from the community that gives us so much during the rest of the year. The Malaise rework is obviously a part of it, but we wanted to give a little something to everyone, not only to people with the crazy gaming skills able to beat the highest BCs.
So, here it finally is: the Katana, allowing you to attack swiftly by smashing the button, or to slice through mobs by holding it. We hope you enjoy using it!
New mob
Armed with Explosive Crossbows, the Demolisher can be found wandering in the Distillery (because there aren’t enough explosions there already) as well as in other biomes in other BCs.
New outfits
Massacre your merry way through the island as Santa Beheaded or try and hold your concentration as the Snowman. Nothing stands in the way of us becoming Game of the Century now *evil laugh*
New diet
One glaring hole in the game was the lack of smelly cheese to heal yourself with. As a French studio we had to rectify this immediately, so you can now scarf a whole wheel of cheese like a real Skyrim warrior. Vive la France!
Phew! That's it for now, we're going to let the alpha run for a week or so, and if you want to leave some feedback after trying it out then head over to our reddit thread here.
Cheers,
Matt, EE & MT
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