Dead Cells is a fast-paced action platformer that incorporates elements of the rogue-lite genre. The game’s structure centers on repeated attempts, where the player is expected to die often but still maintain advancements between runs. This meta-progression system ensures that each failed attempt contributes meaningfully to the overall power and access of the player character. The core loop involves collecting resources and unlocking permanent features that make subsequent runs easier or open new avenues of exploration.
Understanding Cells and Permanent Unlocks
The most common and immediate form of progression within the game is managed through a resource called Cells. These small, glowing orbs drop consistently from nearly every defeated enemy throughout a run. Players must carry these Cells and attempt to deposit them at the end of each biome, risking their loss entirely upon death before reaching the next safe zone.
The primary destination for these collected Cells is The Collector, a non-player character found between biomes. Here, players spend the accumulated currency to permanently unlock Blueprints discovered during the run. Blueprints represent new weapons, skills, and passive abilities called Mutations, adding variety and potential build options to future playthroughs. Once a Blueprint is unlocked, the item has a chance to appear in the starting equipment, shop inventories, or dropped from enemies in all subsequent attempts.
Beyond unlocking new items, Cells are also invested into the Legendary Forge, which is located in the same transition areas. The Forge allows players to increase the quality tier of items that spawn during a run, improving their base damage and attribute bonuses. Investing a substantial amount of Cells into the Forge is necessary to ensure higher-quality equipment appears consistently.
This investment is initially focused on ensuring that all items are at least ‘+’ quality, then ‘++’ quality, and eventually ‘S’ quality. Successfully maxing out the Forge is a long-term goal that dramatically affects the efficacy of all subsequent runs.
Runes: Essential Permanent Progression Tools
While Cells govern equipment and build variety, a different set of permanent unlocks called Runes dictates the player’s ability to navigate the game world. These are traversal tools that, once acquired, fundamentally expand the accessible map area, regardless of the difficulty level chosen. Runes are not currency-based unlocks; instead, they are granted upon defeating specific elite enemies or bosses found in dedicated biomes.
The Vine Rune is often the first to be acquired, allowing the player to grow climbable vines from patches of green goo found on the ground. This instantly opens up previously blocked vertical paths in the starting biomes. Following this, the Teleportation Rune allows the character to pass through sarcophagi marked with a distinct symbol, linking various distant points within a level.
Further progression yields the Ram Rune, which enables the player to smash through weakened floor tiles to access hidden areas or entirely new biomes beneath them. The final major traversal ability is the Spider Rune, which grants the capacity to climb up walls, drastically changing how level geometry is approached and opening up the most challenging hidden biomes.
Boss Cells: Escalating Difficulty and True Progression
The true measure of mastery and the ultimate progression path in Dead Cells is tied to the acquisition of Boss Cells. These objects act as difficulty modifiers, fundamentally changing the game’s challenge rather than merely adding new equipment or traversal options. A Boss Cell (BC) is rewarded to the player upon defeating the Hand of the King, the final boss of the current highest difficulty level achieved.
Activating a Boss Cell dramatically escalates the combat challenge across the entire game. Moving from 0 BC to 1 BC, for example, increases enemy health and damage output, introduces new enemy types into earlier biomes, and limits the player’s access to healing sources. At 1 BC, the health flask can only be refilled at the end of a biome, rather than being fully restocked automatically.
Subsequent BC levels continue this trend, with 2 BC further restricting healing and introducing even more aggressive monster placements. Higher levels also often restrict access to certain permanent mechanisms, such as locking The Collector entirely, forcing the player to rely solely on the Legendary Forge for power investment. These difficulty increases compel players to master the foundational mechanics and equipment combinations.
The progression culminates at 5 BC, the maximum level, where new biomes, a unique final boss, and the game’s true ending are unlocked. These higher difficulty settings also unlock the ability to find and use higher-tier equipment, such as items with the ‘L’ (Legendary) quality. Players must have fully upgraded the Legendary Forge, utilizing the Cells collected in earlier runs, to ensure their equipment can compete with the heightened enemy scaling.