Developers Evil Empire and Motion Twin have announced that update 35 for Dead Cells, called “The End is Near,” will be the last one that adds new content, bringing an end to five years of post-launch support.
The decision to end the journey was made in order to prevent future updates from feeling derivative. “Our commitment to avoiding the ‘more of the same’ trap and keeping Dead Cells fresh and original has led us to this point,” Motion Twin explained in a statement. “As we’ve seen with other long-running series, it’s crucial not to overextend and risk diminishing the unique charm that makes Dead Cells special to us all.”
The team will continue to work on the game to iron out bugs and improve on quality-of-life issues. However, the developers are still excited to explore the world of Dead Cells outside of the original game and will provide updates about the animated series and board game.
While The End is Near is still in development, one of its main features is the expansion of the Curse mechanic, which causes any amount of damage to immediately kill the player. For example, going through a cursed biome will cause all items dropped to be 1 gear level higher.
Dead Cells was first released in 2018 and has received numerous free updates and several paid expansions, including the Queen of the Sea, Fatal Falls, and the Bad Seed. The most memorable Dead Cells expansion is its collaboration with the Castlevania franchise, with Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania.
In GameSpot’s Dead Cells review, we said, “Dead Cells is a phenomenal effort to blend together some very disparate genres into a tight, cohesive whole. It’s one of the better examples of how to remix ideas without losing their individual strengths.”
