Dead Cells left Early Access earlier this year, and many of us discovered at the time that it can be a pretty challenging game thanks to the whims of the RNG gods. Now, developers Motion Twin are giving us power over those forces. The latest patch for the game lets you set up your own custom runs.
Version 1.1’s custom game mode gives you control over most of the randomly-determined elements in the game, notably the loot table and your starting gear. In other words, you can begin each run with your favorite weapon, shield, and bow and make sure items you don’t like won’t show up in shops or chests along the way.
You can also unlock items you haven’t found yet, and then relock them if you feel a twinge of guilt. The mode gives you control over just about everything loot-related in the game, which could be helpful for players stuck on a troublesome boss fight.
Along with the custom game mode option, the 1.1 patch brings a ton of fixes and adjustments to Dead Cells. Motion Twin has buffed a bevy of items that players weren’t using, reworked several of the game’s mutations, completely rebuilt the cooldown reduction mechanic, and in general rebalanced the game’s difficulty.
The full list of changes introduced in version 1.1 is extensive, and Motion Twin has tagged the ones that have come about thanks to community feedback. One example: the timed doors that you’d have to rush to in order to claim the rewards they held have been moved to transition levels, and they now offer you a choice of three rewards instead of scrolls.
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It’s a seriously massive list of changes that together will undoubtedly shake up the way Dead Cells plays. Motion Twin says it wants to both smooth out some of the difficulty spikes and keep the early levels interesting, so we’ll see how well version 1.1 manages to accomplish those goals. If you’ve picked up Dead Cells but have hit a wall with it, now is probably a good time to hop back in.