‘Dead Cells’ Developer Isn’t In a Hurry To Produce a Sequel

Finally released for consoles this past summer, Motion Twin’s Dead Cells rocked us to our very core, creating a masterful Metroidvania experience on consoles and PC alike. But despite its massive success, the developer isn’t entirely, ahem, dead set on making a sequel right away, if at all.

In a recent interview with Game Informer, Motion Twin game designer Sebastien Benard was recently asked about the possibility of a sequel, but he wasn’t entirely excited by the idea. “In terms of a sequel, we know for sure it’s not a good idea to dwell on your success,” he said. “If you create a big hit, it’s best to use this energy to make something different. I don’t think we’ll make a Dead Cells 2. We’re more open to creating more content and opening the game up more to the community. If we did make a Dead Cells 2, it’s because we really need the money (laughs). We don’t want to stick to the same thing though, so I think if we did come back it would be something quite different, not a platformer or roguelike along these lines.”

That’s not to say we’ve seen a stop on the franchise by any means. The developer is still working on post-release content for Dead Cells, given its popularity. And note that Benard didn’t so no entirely, as a sequel would no doubt make serious bank if it did release.

The focus, for now, seems to be strengthening the original release with stuff that will make players stick around, such as the new custom game mode that just came with its latest update, free of charge.

The interview also goes into detail about how the game wasn’t originally built in the Metroidvania mold, but rather as a free-to-play tower defense game. “Actually, it was quite a chaotic process,” Benard explained.
“At the beginning, the first version of this game, which used to be called Hordes Zero, was started like three or four years ago. We had lots of issues with it because it wasn’t fun, especially for that type of game. We struggled with this for quite a long time, until a friend at a different company told us that a prototype section we made was more entertaining than the actual game. It was a realization for us because we understood we should focus on the single-player experience first, instead of making it multiplayer or that game. From this point, it was a matter of cutting a lot of elements from the original project. We gave up everything that was related to tower defense, and went in the direction of a platformer like Metroidvania instead.”

The full interview can be found here; and we’re glad Dead Cells ended up the way it did, as it’s easily one of the year’s best games.

Dead Cells is available now for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC.