Bordeaux, France (June 23, 2022) – Evil Empire and Motion Twin today announced that the latest update to the multi-million-selling Dead Cells is now live across PC, Switch, Xbox and PlayStation. “Breaking Barriers” introduces a variety of optional accessibility settings for players, making its signature “tough but fair” gameplay available to a wider audience for the first time.
The developers worked closely with the Ablegamers organization and various legends from the Dead Cells community over the past months to design and test these new settings for people with disabilities, as well as the game’s new Assist Mode.
“The intent of this update is to allow players who struggle to, or cannot play, Dead Cells to be able to experience the game as we intended. We had feedback during beta testing that some people who don’t ‘need’ Assist Mode will use it regardless and the result is that they won’t play Dead Cells as a challenging roguelike,” said an Evil Empire spokesperson. “We’ve put multiple messages regarding this in-game, but in the end it’s up to the player how they want to enjoy the game. However, we will not disable achievements for players who use these options. We are not going to make it possible for people to play the game and then take achievements away from them.”
The new options in this update include mobility input adjustments such as hold to second jump/roll, customisable controls and more, along with visual options like UI size and transparency, font size/type, customisable background color filters, no-blood mode plus many more. Everything is collected in a specific accessibility menu to gather all these options in one place. There's no point making an accessibility menu inaccessible...
Assist Mode exists in its own menu and contains:
● Multiple lives – Each time you die you can resurrect from the beginning of the biome, in the same state that you started in. You can choose between 1, 3, 7 or infinite lives. This is targeted for players who have involuntary movements or activity, such as muscle spasms, to have another chance if their run is ruined by something that is out of their control.
● Auto-hit – Automatically target nearby enemies with your primary melee weapon. This will automatically attack with your primary weapon, allowing players to just manage their secondary weapon and skills, reducing the need for rapid inputs.
● Adjustable trap damage, enemy damage and enemy health in % increments, plus toggable options for slower parry window and trap speed. This is meant to allow specific, dare we say delicate, adjustment of the game’s challenge while leaving the rest of the game as it is.
● An option to instantly reveal the whole map for players who struggle with spatial awareness.
In addition, the “Breaking Barriers” update comes with eight new weapon reworks, and a reduction in early-game item cost to allow players to unlock new weapons more quickly alongside the crucial life & gold upgrades.
Regarding future free content updates, a spokesperson for both studios said, “If you’re a Dead Cells player who doesn’t need any of the content that we’re introducing in this update, don’t worry. We have plenty of shiny new things to introduce to Dead Cells this year.”
The entire list of updates and the optional accessibility settings, which we encourage everyone to read, can be found at https://dead-cells.com/patchnotes.
For the latest on Dead Cells, be sure to follow @motiontwin on Twitter.
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About Motion Twin
Motion Twin is an independent game development studio based in France since 2001 and are the creators of the hit roguelike action game Dead Cells, available for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch platforms. Motion Twin is a worker cooperative passionate about creating new game experiences. Learn more at https://motion-twin.com/en/.
About Evil Empire
Evil Empire is the evil spawn of a bunch of ex-Motion Twiners. Formed in 2018 in close proximity and partnership with Motion Twin, Evil Empire is focused on producing new original content, both for Dead Cells and new IP.