Dead Cells’ newest (and free) update graces consoles on September 8th. The update includes new weapons, skins, and more!

Dead Cells Free Update “Enter the Panchaku” Releases on Consoles

Motion Twin and Evil Empire are developers that just keep on giving and giving back to the fans. According to their roadmap, 2023 will be the game’s most significant year since its launch. This is quite ambitious as the team has already produced some high-quality updates.

Some of the highlights included June’s “Breaking Barriers” accessibility options, which still make the game “tough but fair”. They’ve also released some good paid DLC, such as The Queen and The Sea back in January.

This time around, the Dead Cells team has released the “Enter the Panchaku” update on all consoles. Enter the Panchaku was available already via PC back in August, so the consoles have finally been caught up to the new features.

Enter the Panchaku

The highlight of Dead Cells’ Enter the Panchaku update is definitely the newest weapon, a new skin, and another indie crossover. It is also quite impressive to note that this is the game’s 30th major update, which is quite the feat for the indie game.

However, the most important part of this update is that pets are now pettable.

(Poorly) Fighting in Style

Dead Cells’ new Panchaku weapon is the ultimate representation of making the most out of every tool in the arsenal. The titular weapon is literally two frying pans tied together by string, imitating the fighting style of nunchucks.

Arguably, this weapon is much more effective than simple nunchucks, as they are quite large, non-stick, and can fry an egg quite well. Aside from its humorous theme, the Panchaku’s other feature is that it will have a high crit rate against enemies facing the player.

Back to Basics

Next is the Bobby cosmetic skin. This outfit gives the player the looks of the Beheaded from the initial trailers and promotional media.

A long time ago, the Beheaded was depicted as a man with a bright pink flaming head with an eye before he gained his new, iconic (and stylish) look. This is a nice nod that Evil Empire has made to Motion Twin’s and Dead Cells’ roots.

A Soulful Crossover

New in Dead Cells’ Enter the Panchaku update is another cute crossover. This time, the pixel-based Soul Knight roguelite has its main character make a surprise appearance in Dead Cells. While this crossover content was already available in the mobile version of the game, it has only now been ported to consoles.

Along with Soul Knight comes a new Magic Bow weapon that fires off arrows that automatically follow its intended target. Players will also get the Knight’s Outfit to allow them to look like the Soul Knight.

Motion Twin has been great at recognizing other indie roguelites. One of their previous crossovers was with Hollow Knight where they introduced his iconic Nail weapon and pogo-stick style traversal.

A Legendary Arsenal

Dead Cells is also getting their Legendary Weapon System. These powerful pickups will no longer scale off of two stats. Instead, their damage will be based on whatever the player’s highest stat is. The developers felt that the previous system was a bit counter-intuitive since players needed to invest into two different stats to make the most of Legendaries.

All weapons can now roll into Legendaries because of the possibility of them now rolling with Legendary Affixes. These affixes will always be in addition to the weapon’s normal properties, greatly enhancing their effects rather than choosing something to replace.

Some of the more interesting Affixes are as follows:

• Double Bullets & Triple Bullets: simply doubles or triples the amount of bullets that are shot out of the weapon, respectively.
• Golden Damage: increases the weapon damage depending on how much gold the player is currently carrying.
• Double Stack: doubles status effect stacks that are inflicted by the weapon, such as burning.
• True Evil: triples the weapon’s damage but makes the player unable to use their other equipment.

Of course, there are also tons of balance changes and little improvements here and there.

Looking Forward to Dead Cells

Dead Cells’ Enter the Panchaku just goes to show how dedicated the developers are to keeping their game fun, updated, and unique. It is also refreshing how willing they are to collaborate and provide crossover Easter Eggs for their fellow indie games.

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For more news, check out Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin Gets DLC Wanderer of the Rift This October, and Asterigos: Curse of Stars Releases October 11th; Demo Available Now.