Up for some mysterious yet dangerous journeys? Well, if that’s the case Dead Cells is your game to play, and with its most recent update dropping just last Friday, now is the perfect time to get into it. 

Dead Cells is a roguelike game, or a 2D platformer type game where you have one life per run. In roguelike games you only have one life throughout the game, but when you die the map will be reset and randomized and you will respawn with nothing. 

Dead Cells starts players off with a simple choice of a knife, shield or bow. You have two primary slots and two gadget slots, you can have two weapons or a weapon and a shield. Each weapon falls into a category or two: Brutality, Survival and Tactics. Brutality is focused more on melee weapons, survival is slow but heavy-hitting weapons, and tactics are more range-based weapons. Though deceptively simple, this system, coupled with environments that are always different each time you pass through, sets the stage for a multitude of fresh experiences. 

The addition of increasing your stats with scrolls of power and duality scrolls, though you can only upgrade one stat, also adds a satisfying degree of customization. Each biome has a certain amount of these scrolls, which incentivizes exploration. With scrolls of power you can upgrade brutality, survival and tactics, but qith duality scrolls, you can only upgrade either tactics or brutality. When you are presented with a scroll it should look like this:

If you choose the red more than once then you will gain less and less health every time you choose, but the damage will always be random; this happens with all of the stats. 

Every time you go to a new biome there is a rest area which has two people and a health flask refill. The Cell Collector will upgrade items and Build blueprints, once the blueprint is built the item will be permanently added to the pool of items in the game allowing them to be found anywhere. Then there’s the Mutation person Mutations give you special abilities, but you can only have three at a time. Now about the health flask, you have one from the very beginning and heals a certain amount of health no matter how much you have. At the start you only have one charge but, by killing enemies they may drop cells which are the currency needed to buy upgrades; said upgrades are permanent no matter if you die. It’s all a mix of comforting game mechanics that come together to create something both familiar but exciting.

The game could thrive on its systems alone, but with a stellar soundtrack and fluid, pixelated animations, Dead Cells is a game that will keep you entertained for hours. With additional content and bug fixes a part of this most recent update, as well as a reduced price, Dead Cells is not to be missed.