Development on the Steam hit Dead Cells will be discontinued after 7 years. The responsible development studios announced this on February 9th. But a former employee suspects a marketing stunt.
What game is it about? Dead Cells is a stylish action game that combines aspects from different genres: On its Steam page, the game is described as “Souls-Lite” and “RogueVania”.
Dead Cells was released in 2018 for PC, Switch, PlayStation and Xbox and 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 rating on Metacritic is between 84 and 91 points depending on the platform.
Dead Cells – Kill. The. Learn. Repeat.
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Steam hit Dead Cells stops development
What is the current situation with Dead Cells? On February 9, 2024, developers Motion Twin and co-developers Evil Empire announced that development of Dead Cells would be discontinued 7 years after its 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 writes that they don’t want to overuse Dead Cells and risk losing its unique charm.
Co-developer Evil Empire was separated from Motion Twin in 2019 to take over further development of Dead Cells while the original studio moved on to its upcoming game Windblown. This project could now also be the reason for the discontinuation of development.
For its part, the studio announced that it was working on “one or two” games (via X).
Ex-developer speaks of an “asshole action”
What does the ex-Dev say? Sébastien Bernard, former lead designer of Dead Cells, calls Motion Twin’s decision the “worst possible asshole move” against Dead Cells and Evil Empire in a post on his studio Deepnight’s Discord server.
The official statement was total “marketing bullshit,” Bernard continued, but behind the scenes the situation was completely different. He writes: “I could never have imagined that my former co-op studio would be made up of such greedy people.”
In a blog post on February 12th, the developer addressed the announcement from his former studio and apologized for the impulsive and harsh words.
Not the first time players have been left behind?
According to Bernard, Motion Twin had already failed its loyal player base once: When Dead Cells became a surprise hit, they no longer cared about the fans of the browser games that the studio had previously produced.
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 thanks to Evil Empire. The studio would have taken over Motion Twin’s “hard work” and kept the game alive for so long.
For this, Bernard continues, Evil Empire has received increasing recognition as “the real people responsible” behind Dead Cells’ success. He accuses Motion Twin of stopping development for tactical reasons in order to leave room for their new roguelite Windblown. This is a logical marketing stunt.
We contacted Motion Twin and asked for a statement. As soon as we have his answer, we will add it here.
What are “roguelike” games and why are they called that?