Dead Cells – still trucking (Picture: Motion Twin)
Roguelike Dead Cells has hit 10 million sales, making it one of the most successful indie games ever – and it’s still not done yet.
The curse of indie game sequels may sound silly, but it is a very real phenomenon, with the follow-ups to even the most beloved titles never seeming to do anywhere near as well. But there is a simple solution to this problem: don’t make sequels, make expansions.
That’s always been Dead Cells’ policy and it has paid off incredibly well, with the game about to celebrate its fifth anniversary in August, after five separate expansions (and a number of smaller updates) including the most recent Castlevania crossover.
Usually it’s only live service games, like Rainbow Six Siege, that refuse to make a sequel but Dead Cells is a rare example of a single-player only game following the same path, with developer Evil Empire indicating it plans to support the game until at least the end of 2024.
That means more expansions and no sequels, with no confirmation that there will be a Dead Cells 2 even after that.
‘With years of successful updates and expansions behind it after taking over live ops of Dead Cells in 2019, the studio is tinkering with its time-tested methodology, experimenting with ideas for future updates and new ways for fans to enjoy one of their favourite roguelikes,’ said Evil Empire in a statement.
Evil Empire is not technically the original developer of the game, as creator Motion Twin didn’t want to expand and so they created Evil Empire instead, to carry on working on the game.
According to an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Evil Empire is interested in new projects afterwards, so there may well never be a Dead Cells 2, which is probably the most sensible decision considering how these things usually work out.
Evil Empire has plans for two new games at the moment, with the first due in early access next year and the other in 2025. They’re implied to be existing IPs from other companies but whether that means that Konami has got them working on a full-blown Castlevania game is anyone’s guess…
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Roguelike Dead Cells has hit 10 million sales, making it one of the most successful indie games ever – and it’s still not done yet.