Self-titled "roguevania" game Dead Cells recently received its sixth major update, the Hand of the King, adding a new level and boss along with a bevy of balance changes. According to developer Motion Twin, the Hand of the King will be the last major update before Dead Cells leaves Early Access.
The new level is The Castle, an aptly named stronghold said to be filled with "some familiar but interesting enemies" including two new enemies. The Castle's boss is the Hand of the King himself, who Motion Twin describes as "a real stinker" capable of "rapid attack patterns and of course stacks of damage." Motion Twin clarified that while the Hand of the King is the final boss of the campaign, it will not be the last boss to be added to Dead Cells.
The new boss and level are made all the more harrowing by the Nightmare difficulty also added in the update. Luckily, while the update certainly isn't going to make the game any easier, it does include some quality of life changes:
- Dodging no longer interrupts your combos, allowing you to dodge and then launch strong follow-up attacks.
- HP scaling has been reworked to favor points invested in survival, enabling survival builds to actually survive.
- Fog Fjord, Graveyard, Sepulchre and Ossuary levels have been redesigned to prioritize slightly smaller stages and better items.
You can read the full Hand of the King patch notes here.
Thanks, Eurogamer.
