Update 35: The End is Near is now live!

Hey everyone!

It took us a longer time than usual to prepare, but better late than never: the 35th updated The End is Near is here! In this update, we are stuffing in new mobs, weapons, mutations and biome effects all expanding on the curse mechanic, 40+ new head skins, almost 20 new legendary affixes, extra accessibility options and more!

TLDR:

• New additions based on one of our most iconic mechanics, Curse: 3 new mobs, 3 new weapons, 3 new mutations and a new biome effect for you to choose whether you are gonna take the risk for more rewards or not.
• New legendary affixes.
• 40+ new heads for customization options.
• New routing: you can now go to both Return to Castlevania biomes in one run.
• More accessibility options.

New Curse Additions:

3 new mobs:

• Sore Loser: a cutie who can’t hurt you but is super clingy and annoying, always trying to be close to you and dash through you. When you kill it, you get cursed.
• Doom Bringer: every melee attack from it won’t cause damage, but will apply 2 stacks of curse and stun you, and you will instantly die if you have already got 50 stacks of curse. Sounds pretty fair right?
  
• Curser: it launches a slow homing projectile that can go through the walls. If you “accidentally” get caught by this projectile, you take damage and 5 stacks of curse. One more surprise! If you get close to it, it will bonk you with its staff.
  

Please note that cursed mobs won’t spawn randomly in your run! (yeah, we know mobs giving curses sounds a bit scary and even annoying)
There is a new biome effect, Cursed Biomes, which features the new cursed mobs in exchange for extra rewards. You can choose to go into it with its rewards, or go to the other biomes that don’t have any scary cursed mobs.

Here is more info about how Cursed Biome works in your run:

• Cursed biomes only spawn in runs with a Boss Cell level 2 or higher (boss fight biomes won’t be cursed).
• Just like biome incentives, there will be a specific icon above the exit to a cursed biome, so that you can have the choice of taking this challenge or just going to the other normal biomes.
• A cursed biome always contains 9 (+/-2) cursed mobs randomly selected from Curser, Sore Loser and Doom Bringer.
• There is, of course, a reward for that risk: all the items dropped in a cursed biome will drop 1 gear level higher, regardless of their source (shop, loots, etc.). The spawn chance of cursed chests also increases by 10% in such biomes.
• There is a cap to the number of cursed biomes that you can go through on your route, depending on the BC level, set as follows: from BC 2 to 5 respectively: 2, 3, 5 and 8 (i.e. in 5BC, there is no cap).
• This cap only limits the number of Cursed Biomes that you can go to in a run, it doesn’t mean that you must go through that many Cursed Biomes to finish your run.
• Once you have hit the cap, no more cursed biomes will appear in that run. Until you have hit the cap, cursed biomes will continue to appear.
• As long as you haven’t reached the cap, biomes always have a 25% chance of being cursed. There will always be at least 1 biome without cursed mobs at any point in your run, no exceptions.

With new infested monsters, we of course prepared more powerful weapons and mutations for you:

3 new weapons:

• Anathema: rip a Mushroom Boi’s heart out to fire a heavy indirect projectile dealing AOE damage. However, there is a price for being an utter savage - you will get cursed if your attack hits anything. Yep, you only get cursed if you hit something. Whoever is creating these curses doesn't care how many mushrooms you tear apart, just if you hit anything afterwards. Makes you think...
  
• Indulgence: Calls down a ray of vengeful light on the nearest enemy dealing critical damage if you are not cursed. Targets killed by the ray purge you of 3 stacks of curse instead of 1. Fires 1 additional ray per 5 stacks of curse you have (max: 5 per cast).
• Misericorde: inflicts crits if the victim has less than 50% HP. Curses you if the crit doesn't kill its target.
  

3 new mutations (all colorless):

• Cursed Flask: your health flask has infinite charges but also curses you 20 times each time you use it. But can you survive from those 20 stacks of curse? TAKE CARE, my friends…
• Damned Vigor: upon being dealt fatal damage, you stay alive at 1 HP for 2 seconds. If you kill any enemy while under this effect, you will be saved. Otherwise, when the effect disappears or you get hit while under it, you instantly die without any sort of protection applicable.
• Demonic Strength: Damage increases by 30% if you are cursed. This bonus is increased by 2% per curse stack you have. Cursed Sword counts as 1 stack for this effect (no special bonus for it, but you can still stack curses on top of it).

Also, after digesting a bunch of suggestions from you guys, we’ve done a bunch of reworking and rebalancing on the legendary weapons that needed it.

New legendary affixes:

• Flawless: NEW Almost Perfect: Killing an enemy within one second after getting hit allows you continue causing crits.
• Gold Digger: NEW Filthy Rich: Crit multiplier increases with your gold.
• Punishment: NEW Punish Combo: Recasts the AOE effect if it kills at least one target.
• Rampart: NEW Mirror Coating: Reflects damage of attacks received while under the effect of the shield's force field. This damage scales with the attack received (i.e., the stronger the attack is, the more damage the shield reflects).
• Cocoon: NEW Parry Streak: Each consecutive parry reduces Cocoon's cooldown the next time it starts.
• Emergency Door: NEW Armoured Door: The door can't be destroyed by enemies (except for bosses).
• Bone: NEW Whirlwind: Increases the last attack's whirlwind duration by 2 sec with every enemy it kills.
• Wrenching Whip: NEW Retiarus: The first attack throws 3 crow's feet in front of you (with the same internal cooldown as the grenade affix).
• Explosive Decoy: NEW Foolproof: The cooldown of the item is instantly reset if its explosion doesn't hit at least one target.
• Barrel Launcher: Triple Bullet (i.e. not a new affix, but we changed the one it had before).
• Leghugger: NEW Mitosis: Summons 2 Leghuggers instead of 1.
• Assault Shield: NEW Charged Dash: Holding the shield button will charge a stronger version of the dash, which can then be used by releasing the button.
• Ice Shards: NEW Bouncy: Projectiles bounce on the ground twice before disappearing.
• Quick Bow: NEW Sharpshooter: Critical hits will refill one ammo.
• Bladed Tonfas: NEW Lacerator: Only uses the first attack of the combo.
• Grappling Hook: NEW Octavio: Also fires a chain behind you.
• Tesla Coil: NEW Double Use: You can use the skill twice. Each use has its own cooldown.
• Lightning Rods: NEW Double Use: You can use the skill twice. Each use has its own cooldown.

Some notable balances:

• The Bank is slightly easier in 2, 4 and 5BC. Yeah, SLIGHTLY...
• The Throw Master's bone projectile deals less damage in Return to Castlevania DLC.
• Alienation rework: Instead of healing the player per curse reduced, it will now heal the player when the curse is lifted, with the amount of health recovered based on the max amount of curses you had (for that curse instance). The effect only starts triggering when the player had more than 5 curses, and requires 35 stacks of curse to fully heal you.

New head customization:

What do we have in the Tailor’s Daughter’s secret stash?

• Flame heads based on various appearances of the Beheaded along the years to make sure you are always in a suit and tie.
• Bosses’ heads such as the Queen, the Time keeper, etc. As if you could become as badass as those bosses with their smart brain.
  
  
• And lots of strange and secret heads, such as the Cell Head, are waiting for you!

New routing

• We've also changed the connections between biomes:
• Added an exit to Master's Keep in High Peak Castle.
• Added exits to Corrupted Prison and Ossuary in Castle's Outskirts.
• Added an exit to Dracula's Castle (early) in Corrupted Prison and Toxic Sewers.
• Added an exit to Black Bridge in Dracula's Castle (early).
• Added an exit to Defiled Necropolis in Ossuary.
• Replaced the exit to Fractured Shrines in Defiled Necropolis by an exit to Graveyard.
• Added a light source in the Mimic Hint lore room, when it spawns in Forgotten Sepulcher.
• Added an exit to Dracula's Castle (late) in Mausoleum, Guardian's Haven and Clock Room.

Yes, this does mean that you can now go to both Return to Castlevania biomes in one run...

More accessibility options:

• Added two new sets of control icons and an option to select them. You can select either "Legacy" (current icons), "New" (a new, cleaner set) or "Big" (accessibiliy focused, easier to read).
• Changed the Daily Challenge's boss arrow opacity, for better visibility.
• Added new input options for the "going through platform" action.
• Added options to change the controller triggers' deadzone.
• Reworked the Auto-hit assist mode option. It will no longer force the use of a melee weapon in the first slot.
• Added an option to add a background to most texts in the game. The background's color and opacity can be adjusted.
• The left stick can now be used to scroll through item descriptions in the pause menu.
• Added options to fully invert the player and camera movement.
• Added a bunch of options to tweak the camera's behavior. The influence of the player's movement, combat, or points of interest can be customized.
• Split the "controller sticks deadzone" into two options, one for each stick.
• Added an outline option for spikes.
• Added a button to center the minimap on the player.

And that’s all!

To the players - Thank you for everything. Thank you for all of your dedication, passion, and feedback. Dead Cells wouldn't be what it is today without all of you.

And a huge thanks to everyone who worked on the game, from previous Motion Twin members to everyone at Evil Empire.

If you want to stay up to date on what the two teams are doing next, you can check out Windblown and The Rogue Prince of Persia below:

Evil Empire

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2717880/The_Rogue_Prince_of_Persia/

Motion Twin

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1911610/Windblown/

Cheers,

EE & MT