Prima Game of the Week | Dead Cells

Why You Should Play

• Addicting gameplay loop full of challenging enemies and levels.
• Rogue-like experience that ensures no playthrough is ever the same.
• Hours of fun as levels reset and take on new forms each time that you die.
• Tons of upgrades, mutations and weapons to find and collect.

If you’ve ever played old school games like Metroid or Castlevania, then the idea of a metroidvania platformer isn’t something new, and Dead Cells captures the look, feel and gameplay of these older games in a perfectly new way—including a unique twist that helps give the game hours of replay value. From challenging enemies to dark and mysterious levels, Dead Cells has a lot to give for the players that are willing to dive deep into it, and with time-locked doorways that only stay open a certain amount of time, Dead Cells has something to bring to the table for casual and hardcore metroidvania fans alike.

Gameplay

Like most metroidvania games, Dead Cells focuses on exploring dark and mysterious levels which are broken down into different sections. The main goal here is to keep pressing forward, taking on new enemies, new challenges, and even finding new gadgets and gear along the way. Unlike other metroidvania games, though, Dead Cells also throws some of the rogue-like mechanics seen in popular games like Spelunky into the mix, giving players a new way to experience the game each time they fall prey to the dangers of the world.

Each death resets the current level that you’re on, causing you to lose any upgrades or blueprints that you discovered along the way. The level also completely changes—and while it still holds onto the same basic principle and end goal, the outline and overall feel of the level becomes something completely different. This gives you a nice mix of challenges to overcome and ensures that no single playthrough will ever be the same as your last.

Fast, quick and deliberate combat becomes a focal point as you progress through the game world, with the game itself reward players for learning their enemies’ patterns and staying on top of their toes as much as possible. There’s a lot to love about the way the game handles things, and it’s easy to get lost in the gameplay loop as it sucks you in and keeps you wanting to progress more and more.

Visuals and Performance

We had the chance to try out Dead Cells on both the PlayStation 4 and later the PC and the game looks absolutely gorgeous on both platforms. The artwork here is very reminiscent of older metroidvania games, and really calls back to the golden age of platformers that were made popular in prior years. The game also has a nice note of modernized graphics to it, though, with the visuals appearing smooth while also maintaining the old-school look that made series like Metroid and Castlevania so popular among gamers.

When it comes to performance, Dead Cells is spot on. There’s no hiccups that we noticed in either version of the game, and no matter how much the world threw at us, we were always able to respond accordingly without having to worry about the PS4 or the PC locking up at all. It was a smooth ride from start to finish, and it’s definitely something that players will be able to appreciate as they take on the fast and unbridled combat that makes the game so enjoyable.

Game of the week

With so much to offer, and such a stellar set of visuals and audio performance—the soundtrack goes great with the game itself and is even enjoyable to listen to on its own—Dead Cells has shaped up to be a huge success story for Early Access developers. It’s definitely a game that stands on its own while also drawing plenty of inspiration and making plenty of callbacks to the older games of the metroidvania genre. But, with such smooth, impeccable combat, a killer soundtrack, and old school visuals that take players back down memory lane, Dead Cells easily slipped into first place as our Prima Game of the Week.

Make sure you check out all of our Dead Cells guides for all your strategy needs.