If you’ve always wanted to try Dead Cells but decide not to because of how hard it is, then their announcement will definitely encourage you to pull the trigger!
The developers at Motion Twin have released an announcement that their next update has been released in the game’s alpha build. This includes accessibility options like outlining sprites in-game, holding a button to jump/roll a second time, and button remapping, just to name a few.
As to why the accessibility options are being added to the game, Motion Twin has this to say on their announcement page:
Well, Dead Cells is intended to be tough but fair – sure, you die a lot, but you grow your skill while gaining new weapons & powers until you can beat the final boss, then add a Boss Cell to up the challenge and die to a rat on the next run. And so it begins again…
This is our vision of Dead Cells and we encourage players to try to beat the game as it is, however, we’ve received quite a lot of feedback that this experience is just inaccessible for a decent chunk of players with the game in its current state, for various reasons.
These new options are designed to allow specific adjustments of the game, to make this tough but fair gameplay accessible, while leaving other parts of the game the same.
We hope that these changes can let more players enjoy Dead Cells as we intended, and if the unaltered version of Dead Cells already hits the right balance of challenge and progression for you, then these changes are all optional – just leave the game as it is and continue having fun.
– Motion Twin
The biggest announcement though is definitely the “Assist Mode” which aims to help players who find the game too hard. This section includes a few options like “Continue Mode” where after dying, you go back to the beginning of the biome you died in instead of the usual Prisoner’s Quarters, an “Auto-Hit Mode” where the game automatically strikes enemies with your primary melee weapon if they’re within that weapon’s range, as well as toggles to make parries easier and traps slower.
Aside from the accessibility options and “Assist Mode”, a few weapons were also buffed in order to increase their usability in the game.
These changes are currently available on their alpha build, and if you want to try them out, you can do so by doing the following:
- Back up your save first.
- 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.