The development of the hit game Dead Cells on Steam will be discontinued after 7 years. The responsible development studios announced this on February 9. However, a former employee suspects it might be a marketing stunt.
Which game is it about? Dead Cells is a stylish action game that combines aspects from various genres: On its Steam page, the game is referred to as “Souls-Lite” and “RogueVania.”
Dead Cells was released in 2018 for PC, Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox, and it received mobile ports for iOS and Android in the following years. On Steam, it enjoys an “Extremely Positive” rating with 97% positive reviews, while the score on Metacritic ranges from 84 to 91 points, depending on the platform.
Steam hit Dead Cells ends development
What is the current situation with Dead Cells? On February 9, 2024, the developers Motion Twin and co-developer Evil Empire announced that the development of Dead Cells will be discontinued 7 years after the Early Access launch. The upcoming update 35 for PC is said to represent the “end of the creative journey” of the game.
In an announcement on Steam, Motion Twin stated that they do not want to overextend Dead Cells and risk losing its unique charm.
Co-developer Evil Empire was spun off from Motion Twin in 2019 to take over the further development of Dead Cells, while the original studio focused on their upcoming game Windblown. This project might now also be the reason for the cessation of development.
The studio announced that it is working on “one or two” games (via X).
Ex-developer calls it an “asshole move”
What does the ex-dev say? Sébastien Bernard, former lead designer of Dead Cells, calls the decision of Motion Twin in a post on the Discord server of his studio Deepnight the “worst possible asshole move” against Dead Cells and Evil Empire.
The official statement is total “marketing bullshit,” Bernard continues, revealing that the situation behind the scenes was quite different. He writes: “I could never have imagined that my former co-op studio would consist of such greedy people.”
In a blog post, the developer revisited the announcement of his former studio on February 12 and apologized for the impulsive and harsh words.
Not the first time players get left behind?
According to Bernard, Motion Twin has previously abandoned its loyal player base: When Dead Cells became a surprise hit, they no longer paid attention to the fans of the browser games that the studio had produced earlier.
The developer also claims that while Motion Twin is responsible for the “first million units sold” of Dead Cells, the additional 9 million sales are credited to Evil Empire. The studio has taken over the “hard work” of Motion Twin and kept the game alive for so long.
For this, Bernard continues, Evil Empire has increasingly received recognition as “the true ones responsible” for the success of Dead Cells. He accuses Motion Twin of having now stopped the development for tactical reasons to make room for their new roguelite Windblown. This is a logical marketing stunt.
What are “roguelike” games anyway and why are they called that?
