Fantastic Roguelite!

Roguelite fans, you’ve found your newest conquest! Dead Cells is a fantastic combination of platforming and combat paired with incredible art and game flow. Battle through levels, unlock permanent upgrades and find a variety of weapons and skills. Every run is different as the weapons and skills available to you change, but no run is pointless, as the cells gathered in each area can be used to unlock new features and weapons for future runs. This game is great for casual players and hardcore gamers alike! The difficulty scaling modes unlock after beating the game for the first time, providing more difficult challenges for those who want them, but there’s plenty to do just by playing the game on it’s original mode. There’s plenty of lore for those who want to seek it out (with the game timer stopping in these areas so you can read, which is genius) but it isn’t essential to gameplay. I highly recommend getting the DLC- it provides different paths to take, new areas to explore, new enemies to battle and new equipment to claim, and means you don’t have to run the same areas over and over. The art and music is impeccable, and the variety in gameplay is refreshing and provides infinite replay value. The controls, being touchscreen, take a little adjusting to, but in my opinion work very well once you’ve adjusted to the learning curve. All in all, it’s a fantastic game for anyone interested in the genre and complete newbies alike, and I highly recommend :)

Content?

This game keeps on giving, and I’m not talking about how it has more content after you beat the game, but it does that exceptionally well too. I keep coming back to this game, switching from Xbox to laptop to the app on my phone now because they keep releasing new content that completely changes to feel of the game (in the best way possible). The foundation for this game is so solid I’m sure an entire world could be built with this gameplay, not just an island this game’s setting is using, which is why I’m sad to hear the DLC in 2022 is the last they plan on doing. I’m sure their next project will be amazing as well, but I want Deadcells to keep living and growing. It knows exactly what it is, and it has mastered itself in the way most games can barely dream of, let alone come close to. I love this game, for its art style, the music, the gameplay, the story, the ingenuity, and most of all, raw uniqueness, especially because it’s a direct inspiration from all the beloved games that have come before and after. I’m in love with the gameplay provided by the last DLC and more so by the crossover content. The newest weapons are an absolute joy, and I never thought my favorite weapon in a game would be a bone, but like I said before, Deadcells does it right.

Touch controls are a bit difficult

First off, I would like to say that I love this game. I’ve played it for upwards of 200 hours since I purchased it, and on my Steam save file I’ve recently made it to the hardest level of difficulty. However, I would suggest people who seriously want to buy the game should look into buying a copy of this game for console or PC. Though the price is a little steeper, you will get the latest updates to the game, while on this app updates will be up to 6 or 7 months behind release (I’m still waiting for the Break the Bank update to come to mobile, though there have now been two major updates after that). On top of that, the touchscreen controls are a bit difficult to operate. I own a second generation iPhone SE that I play this game on, and I often miss the button that I want to press at a critical moment. Seeing that I was playing at the easiest level of difficulty and was struggling on mobile, yet wouldn’t have a single problem on my computer, it would be nice to make a small change to the interface, perhaps like making the main and secondary weapon buttons larger. Overall, though, the experience is rather similar to that which you get on computer save those gripes. Thanks to Playdigious for porting my favorite game over to mobile, and I hope this review is helpful for anyone looking to purchase this app. 🙂

Quite enjoyable 🧐

You see, at most 3 years ago, quite possibly less, I played this game for the first time. On Xbox, originally. I had a marvelous experience. It was challenging, visually appealing, fun in general, and the audio was rather lovely. Now, with that being said, the audio is the reason I write this review on this fine day. You see, I had deleted this game on mobile a while ago do to finding myself not playing it. Much later, I reinstalled it after finding myself starved for a challenging rogue-like that was specifically called dead cells. It is still near perfect and very fun to play, however, the audio seems… different. By different, I mean glitchy. Mainly when the critical hit sound effect is involved. I hear sound effects be replayed when nothing is happening multiple times. Say I’m using a weapon such as the cursed sword, I hit an enemy and they die instantly, however, I hear the sound effect of hitting them multiple times, as well as other sound effects such as smashing down on the ground or breaking doors. Out of combat, it does not appear to have any audio glitches. The game still works, it’s not like it’s a major problem, but it is a little… overwhelming, I suppose. Anyways, lovely game all in all. I’ll go play it now.

Such an awesome game never get bored

I like dead cells. I’ve played on Switch and I just had to buy a mobile one too. The game structure is designed so that you never get enough of it because you can never be strong enough with max hp. Every time you die, you start over with 100 hp lol. I personally think those games that let you master and hit max hp always get me bored out since it gives a feeling that I’ve already hit the top. This game doesn’t let you feel that way and is always challenging to survive. But it’s definitely doable. I’m not really that good at controls in general but I’m totally okay with playing this game. Plus, so far I’ve been perfectly fine with the controls on mobile version of this game. It’s totally worth the money and time. It’s very well designed, balanced, reasonable difficulty, and there are many surprises and loots that are hidden and many many possibilities of new paths in the game. To be able to play such well developed game at this price is a bargain! One thing that disappointed me is that while I was able to play with different languages on Switch, I could not play the mobile version with different language setting. I wish they’d add this feature if possible. Other than that, no problem with the game!

Beautiful, just beautiful

At first I was skeptical, as I thought the game was originally intended for PC, so I thought it was off bounds for me, or that it would be a cheap rework with in app payments. But yet, I find it sitting there in the recommendation section, and I just had to try it. For those wondering, it’s a one time payment. You pay once for the game, and you get the game. Plain and simple, the way games should be sold. I just want the developer to know, if you put in an optional donation function, I don’t doubt people will thank you and your team for your flexibility! Random generation for new life’s is incredible, I truly feel as if I’m trapped in repeat, but yet it never gets old. First time was expectingly clumsy. I stumbled along, and got killed by spikes. I got re... globulated? And I found a fire Molotov like throwable. I was doing pretty well! Then I found an amulet that made it so when you did your down smashing attack the ground you landed on gets engulfed in flames. I was cruising along, but then my lack of skill is what got me killed. I’ve found that restarting with the default weapons, I’ve improved. I’m taking less and less damage each run, and it feels really good to know that’s me, and not some boost.

I wish I was better at this game.

Great game, well worth the price, addictive. Not unbearably hard, actually pretty easy to get into but I feel that it’s going to probably be hard to master. It is challenging but fair. Every time I lose I know it’s my own inadequacies at playing the game and I want to hop right back in for another run. The way the game is designed makes it very easy to do so: you are expected to die a lot and the game doesn’t punish you for doing so. Every run is a blank slate and at least partially randomized each time. That said there are some things that carry over across multiple runs and you sort of unlock more and more of those so between that and your own growing skill you get the sense that you’re getting a bit further each time. Controls can be a bit awkward given the small size of the screen. I think though that that is equal parts the inherent downside of the platform (small touch screens) and a mix of both my own unfamiliarity with the controls and me not quite deciding yet what the best configuration is for me (you can move around the control icons).

Good game, but hard with touch controls

I used to play this game with a controller, but for some reason my controller doesn’t seem to be working. Having previously played the game on the switch I splurged and got the dlc on mobile, figuring I’d just do it over again, but the lack of controller support has sort of invalidated my purchase. Update: the dev contacted me as said they have a fix in an upcoming update. So I’ll amend this now on the assumption they’ll fix it, because otherwise there’s a good chance I’ll forget. Dead Cells is a ambitious, complex rogue-lite that utilizes randomized elements of biomes that change as you progress, along with an upgrade system that eventually allows you to take some of the randomness out of certain item drops, let’s you maintain held money etc. I’ve beaten it at least once on the Switch a few years ago, and the phone setup I use currently fits more easily in the pocket. Pretty great game, generally a good buy if you’ve the patience for these games.

Dead Cells is a roguelike video game developed by Motion Twin and published by Playdigious. It was released in August 2018 on PC and video...

�cran Partag� Wed Mar 01 2023

Laura Saada with mobile publisher Playdigious dives deep into the harrowing process of bringing a frenetic button-centric "roguevania" to...

Game Developer Sat Jun 29 2019

With Dead Cells Update 35, the game will wrap up new content development and Evil Empire will focus on developing new games.

Shacknews Fri Mar 29 2024

The game's publisher, Playdigious, says it will release Dead Cells on Android sometimes in the third quarter of 2020.

Engadget Sat Feb 29 2020

One of the best games of 2018 is now hitting mobile devices. Developer Motion Twin has partnered with Playdigious to bring Dead Cells to iPhone and iPad.

gamesbeat.com Tue Jul 29 2025

Playdigious has confirmed that Dead Cells on mobile has accumulated more than two million sales. The mobile port was announced back in July 2019.

PocketGamer.biz Sun Aug 29 2021

Publisher Playdigious announced that the mobile version of Castlevania-inspired action-platformer Dead Cells has sold over 5 million copies.

80 Level Wed Mar 01 2023

Dead Cells by Motion Twin landed on mobile for the first time today with its release on iOS. The game, which the Bordeaux, France-based game...

MacStories Sun Sep 29 2019

In October of last year, I broke the news that Dead Cells had popped up on the Play Store as a pre-registration listing, but the title was...

Android Police Wed Jul 29 2020

At PAX West 2019, Noisy Pixel interviewed Steve Filby, Evil Empire Studio's managing director, about Dead Cells' success, what the future...

Noisy Pixel Tue Oct 29 2019