Beauty School : Dead Cells Update Brings a Whole Host of Indie Crossovers

Dead Cells is still going after its influential release in Early Access in 2017 and then its full launch in 2018. It inspired a few games after its launch and now its next update (called the “Everyone is Here” update) is bringing in a slew of of those games that came before and after it in the search action platformer and roguelite genres. And now, the trailer for said update has finally dropped, showing all of these other indie stars in action. The update is currently out on PC and will come to other systems “at a later date.”

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The trailer, as shown by its thumbnail, contains the protagonists from Guacamelee, Blasphemous, Hyper Light Drifter, Skul: The Hero Slayer, Curse of the Dead Gods, and Hollow Knight. These heroes show up in the game and have one associated skill or weapon and one skin. The new update adds a book at the start of each run in the Prisoner’s Quarters (the first biome) and gives players a challenge that rewards a character from one of the games upon completion. Lore rooms, on the other hand, will give a weapon or skill inspired by one of the aforementioned games. For example, the Pollo Power from Guacamelee will transform the protagonist into a chicken and fire explosive eggs and the Bone from Skul causes a whirlwind on the second swing and causes critical damage. The trailer gives a better look at all of these and more in action.

Motion Twin had first been teasing this update on November 4 through a cryptic tweet. The developer then started gradually hinting at more and more of these crossovers, culminating in the recent trailer.

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Dead Cells already contains references to other indie games like Shovel Knight, Transistor, Firewatch, and Hollow Knight as well as bigger games like Castlevania, Dark Souls, Nier Automata, Uncharted, Tomb Raider, Portal, and Ninja Gaiden, just to name a few.

The official patch notes, which are listed below, mostly includes bug fixes and updated mod support along with all of the new content.

Dead Cells Everyone is Here Update Patch Notes

Everyone is Here!
As we wanted to make this year’s Christmas special, our gift itself needed to be special. Something great, something more, something you’ve never seen before… something literally out of this world.

And that’s why we decided to snoop around the world of indie games, and bring you crossover items from six of your favorite licenses, with one outfit and one weapon each!
Blasphemous
New weapon: Face Flask
– They say this was supposed to heal you, but it doesn’t seem to work that well… Eh, who cares, it looks cool as heck.

New outfit: Penitent’s Outfit
Curse of the Dead Gods
New weapon: Machete and Pistol
– Slash, slash, bang. But like, big strong bang. Basically.

New outfit: Explorer’s Outfit
Guacamelee
New weapon: Pollo Power
– Unleash your inner chicken and bring wrath to your enemies, as you lay egg-bombs all over the island.

New outfit: Luchador’s Outfit
Hollow Knight
New weapon: Pure Nail
– Looks like Blobespierre has finally learnt that he’s not obliged to stop running everytime he wants to take a swing.

New outfit: Vessel’s Oufit
Hyper Light Drifter
New weapon: Hard Light Sword / Hard Light Gun
– Shoot with one to mark your enemy, hit with the other to get your ammo back.

New outfit: The Magician’s Outfit
Skul
New weapon: Bone
– One swing, two swings, one uncontrollable whirlwind… You know the deal.

New outfit: Little Bone’s Outfit
How do I unlock all this beautiful content?
As you explore Prisoners’ Quarters, you might notice some new unusual rooms that don’t seem to belong here. Perhaps they shifted from another dimension ?

Legends say that finding and exploring those rooms will bring you glory and strength!.. as well as new tools to add to your arsenal.

We also heard that a strange, mysterious, might-be-full-of-hints book has appeared somewhere in Prisoners’ Quarters. However, its sayings look quite cryptic and incomprehensible…

Balancing

Fire-related affixes can no longer appear on Ice-related items, and vice-versa.
Dropping a bomb when rolling no longer interrupts invisibility.

Quality of life

Added a new log system
A simple system that will log everything going on internally, to help us understand where some bugs come from. No personal data will be logged.

No changes should be noticeable on your side, apart from log files appearing in your game folder, that you might want to include in future bug reports.
Added the roles of everyone in the “Evil Empire” section of the credits. That way you get to know us a bit more.
Added the ability to scroll through affixes in the Minor Forge menu.

Mods

Mod support updated!
Added a new Key system, allowing to pass data through levels in the same game.
Added a system allowing the modification of an exit door on next levels, even vanilla ones. Yes, you can make an exit to Prisoners’ Quarters, in Prisoners’ Quarters.
Added Timed Doors, No-hit Doors and Old Timed Doors to the level scripting API.
Added the possibility to modify a Timed Door‘s needed time in the same level.
Added an API call returning if a player has a specific DLC.
Added an API call allowing health fountains to adapt to the current player’s Boss Cells.
Added a new button in the mod UI. The “back” button is now used… to go back.
Fixed the mob spawn system.
Fixed the Boss Cells Tube reloading a vanilla game when used in a modded level.

Bug fixes

Fixed Cocoon not activating What Doesn’t Kill Me.
Fixed What Doesn’t Kill Me cooldown.
Fixed the ability to multiply Serenade.
Fixed Boomerang not getting its ammo back if the projectile was destroyed in some cases.
Skills‘ actions can no longer be interrupted.
Fixed a weird interaction between the Jerkshroom‘s attacks and the Parry Shield, which would sometimes hit the player when parrying.
Fixed Demolishers dealing damage through Ice Armor.
Fixed Grenades dealing negative damage in some cases.
Fixed Armadillopack not parrying Guardian Knights and Automatons.
Hunter’s Grenade can no longer be used to reset the cooldown of other skills
Breakable props now follow the same generation rules as floor decorations.
Fixed player tracks not being loaded when changing outfit.
The Scarecrow can no longer be skipped.
Fixed damage buff on invisibility not triggering.
Fixed Stilt Village‘s shortcut sometimes being impossible to get to.
Fixed Tonic‘s effect getting cancelled on any update of the inventory.
Fixed Mama Tick‘s behaviour sometimes becoming broken after interrupting its movement.