Lifeless Cells, the ever-expanding rogue-like action-platformer from builders Movement Twin and subsidiary Evil Empire, continues to swell, this time with the newly launched Enter the Panchaku replace, which introduces pet petting, a formidable twin frying pan weapon, and extra.
The flexibility to pet your pets in a rogue-like action-platformer mightn’t be on the prime of your personal private checklist of thrilling additions, however – as revealed in Evil Empire’s extremely extensive release notes – the function is now in, giving gamers the power to point out their companions some love between biomes. And why would not you need to try this, you monster?
Elsewhere, the free Panchaku replace introduces the brand new Panchaku weapon, which keen-eyed gamers may recognise as originating within the animated trailer for Dead Cells’ Bad Seed expansion. It is described as “two frying pans tied along with a chunk of string, which crits on enemies dealing with you and has a slick combo with hits behind and throughout you”. It’s going to additionally mirror bombs and projectiles mid-combo.
Additionally making the transition from the Dangerous Seed trailer (and certainly all Lifeless Cells’ subsequent growth trailers) is its pink flame-headed star, who will likely be playable through the brand new Bobby pores and skin.
Past that, the replace brings a bunch of mechanical adjustments, together with an intensive rework of things. “It has been some time since our final main rebalance of weapons,” explains Evil Empire. “Since then we have had new gadgets and mutations from the Everyone seems to be Right here and the Break the Financial institution updates, plus The Queen and the Sea DLC, so there’s a number of imbalances right here and there.”
In whole, the Enter the Panchaku replace will rebalance 29 weapons, abilities, and mutations – a transfer the developer says it is making to “hold the variability aspect robust – a superb roguelite ought to give you tough decisions.”
Right this moment’s replace additionally options an overhaul for legendary gadgets (the gold variants you may discover throughout play), supposed to make them extra intuitive and extra fascinating. “The one factor that legendaries gave you was extra harm, that was it,” explains Evil Empire. “Extra harm is at all times good, however we needed to make it higher!”
Its answer is to throw out the prevailing legendary system and introduce new affixes to gold gadgets – primarily, “tasty additional powers you get on gadgets, like 60% harm to a bleeding enemy”.
There’s much more to the replace – together with some crossover content material with fellow rogue-like Soul Knight – and you will find the total particulars in at the moment’s weblog put up and accompanying developer VLOG.
And that is removed from the tip of updates for Lifeless Cells, after all. Final month, Evil Empire mentioned it now considers the game to be in its “mid-life”, revealing a brand new roadmap of content material extending into 2023, which it says would be the “greatest yr because the 1.0 launch”.