5 Tips to Keep You Alive Longer than 5 Minutes in Dead Cells

Dead Cells released today, and it’s no secret the game can be a little on the challenging side, especially with the looming threat of permadeath hanging over your head. Developer Motion Twin describes the game as “rogue-lite, souls-lite” combat, and mastering it will take more than a dozen tries and creating your own unique play style. Here are five tips that will hopefully keep you alive for longer than five minutes.

• Upgrade Your Tactics
  • Around each level, you’ll find scrolls that will allow you to upgrade one of your three skills- Brutality, Tactics, and Survival. Regardless of which one you upgrade, your HP bar at the bottom will always increase, though some upgraded skills will advance the bar more than others. While it may be tempting to upgrade your Brutality to better slash through everyone, over the course of many hours I’ve put into Dead Cells, I’ve actually found it more helpful to upgrade Tactics early and often. This will make your long-ranged weapons and enemy traps significantly stronger, making it the perfect skill to take out enemies quickly and from a distance, if you want to avoid a full-blown confrontation.

• Accept That You Will Die Often. Adjust.
  • There’s no shame in it. Adjusting to the intense, fast-paced combat of Dead Cells is honestly half the fun. Find your rhythm early on. Accept the permadeath with open arms. One of my favorite aspects of Dead Cells isn’t learning from my mistakes in the areas I’ve died in (you can make the same mistake in any area of the level because the combat is so fast); but rather learning from my own style of gameplay- recognizing the weapons and the strategies against certain enemies that keep me alive the longest. It may take a few deaths to get in your own groove, but you’ll find it.

• Explore, Explore, Explore
  • Each level of Dead Cells may seem tight and confined initially, but they are sprawling. Not to mention the levels change slightly each time you see them. The levels extend in every direction, making them almost feel like a maze and there are secret pathways to be found for those adventurous enough to look. The more you explore, the more you’ll be rewarded, as there are little goodies everywhere, like unique weapons and scrolls of power, the latter of which will allow you to upgrade your skills.

• Keep Your Combos
  • Even when you find a combo of weapons that works well for you, it may be tempting to switch them out for others, just to try them out. That’s fine- in fact, it’s great getting accustomed to the variety of weapons available. But switching them up often was a major reason for my own deaths early on. In the beginning, at least, stick with what you know. Master your favorite weapons first, and then think about switching things up a bit.

• Spend Your Cells on Health Flasks
  • At the end of each level, you will come across The Collector, where you will be able to use your collected cells on useful upgrades. Just starting out, I’ve found it useful to spend my cells on upgrades for Health Flasks first. That way, permadeath feels a little less close.

Dead Cells is out today for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. You can check out our review here.