Roguelike
Dead Cells adds daily challenge mode and new abilities
By Samuel Horti published 19 August 17
Embark on a headless sprint to the top of the leaderboards
Dead Cells, the excellent rogue-like Metroidvania, now has a daily challenge mode that you can replay as many times as you want to compete for a spot on the leaderboards.
Daily Run gives everyone the same level and loot, and is already alive and kicking: apparent hardware enthusiast GTX1080ti_Prime is top of the pile. Your ranking is based on the score you achieve rather than the time taken for your run, and there's a separate leaderboard for first runs only.
You only get access to the mode once you've reached a certain milestone in the game (developer Motion Twin isn't saying more than that), and you can only use items you have unlocked in the base game.
The mode was added in an update released for the early access game on Thursday alongside a new ability that lets players sell unwanted items lying on the ground and a speed boost that makes you run faster if you kill multiple enemies in a short space of time.
Also, gold has been rebalanced so that instead of keeping a certain percentage when you die (permanently) you just keep a maximum amount. It's one of the player suggestions that have been added to the game—other brainchildren of the community have been flagged in the patch notes too, which I like. It means that players know their feedback is directly influencing the game in tangible ways.
There's a host of other smaller changes, including a new Items Altar that asks players to choose between two gizmos, plus weapon balances and bug fixes.
If you haven't yet played Dead Cells and you're a fan of Spelunky and its ilk then it's worth checking out. It's got a headless protagonist and snappy combat, and Shaun enjoyed what he played of a previous version back in May.
It's £13.99/$16.99 on Steam.
Samuel Horti
Samuel is a long-time PC Gamer freelancer who loves RPGs and making long lists of games he'll never have time to play. You can find him on the floor, struggling under the weight of his Steam backlog.