Ending Dead Cells updates is a "marketing stunt" to "leave room" for Windblown, claims former lead designer

13.02.2024 - 11:55 / rockpapershotgun.com

Former Dead Cells lead designer Sébastien Benard is none too chuffed about publisher Motion Twin's decision to end development of the well-regarded roguelike Metroidvania. A few days ago, Motion Twin announced that the 35th major Dead Cells update, aptly titled The End Is Near, would be its last. Benard feels this is a betrayal of both the game's community and its current development team, Evil Empire, a spin-off studio who took the reins in 2019.

To be specific, he thinks calling time on Dead Cells is an "asshole move" and "a one-way strategy that leaves people behind" and is designed to clear the decks for Motion Twin's forthcoming Windblown. Benard initially posted about the news when asked for his thoughts on Discord. Here's what he wrote, via Eurogamer.

"Since you're asking me, I'd just say MT did the worst imaginable asshole move against Dead Cells and EE. Having seen first hand the actual situation behind the scene, I can honestly say I'm glad to not be part of this anymore. The official statement is total marketing bullshit, the way this situation happened is on a whole different level. I never imagined my former coop studio would turn out to be such greedy people. I wish the absolute best to EE for their next things, and hope people working there will survive this sudden economic cut."

Benard has now apologised for his "blunt words" in a blog post and offered a longer clarification. The blog post begins by recapping how Dead Cells development shifted to Evil Empire, following the game's launch in 2018. "While Motion Twin retained the IP, Evil Empire, created by former MT associates, continued the hard work and released 22 new major updates and DLCs, for about 5 years," Benard notes. "They hired 50 people during that period of time."

The decision to stop releasing updates for Dead Cells has "left the player community quite speechless", Benard goes on. He points out that "Evil Empire (EE) had official content plans for at least 2024 and 2025", as reported by Push Square in June 2023.

For Benard, the abandoning of Dead Cells (which will still receive bug fix and quality of life updates) is in keeping with what he characterises as Motion Twin's short-termist handling of their previous browser and Flash games, like Eternal Twin.

"To put it shortly, Evil Empire did a tremendous job at keeping the game fresh and alive, while taking great care of their players," he writes. "On the other side, I've seen first-hand how we, Motion Twin, considered our player base, years before Dead Cells even existed. Back when we were making dozens of Browser/Flash games.

"Our short term strategy was: release, update a bit, drop. It's not some confidential information, it's basically what our old player