Dead Cells' Fatal Falls DLC has a homicidal pet sword that flies, and a new trailer

Dead Cells' upcoming DLC, Fatal Falls, has a trailer showing off the two new biomes it'll add to the excellent roguelike, as well as the weapons and enemies therein. Due for release on January 26, developer MotionTwin notes that this marks the 22nd major update to the game since its early access release in 2017, and is only the second expansion to have an asking price ($4.99/£4.99). Most importantly, it will let you Praise the Sun.

The two new areas are The Fractured Shrines and The Undying Shores. The shrines are a trap-stuffed location with a heavy emphasis on platforming and, as the DLC's title suggests, what looks like a lot of fatal falls. The shores just look a bit gloomy at the moment. There's also a new boss, The Scarecrow, who's a raging version of the Royal Gardener NPC surrounded by exploding mushrooms, and the end stretch of the above trailer just shows it battering players around like a doll.

There'll be seven new weapons total, eight new enemy types, and "a homicidal pet sword" that flies. The latter is intended for players specialising in the Brutality stat, so I look forward to pairing it up with the headbutting mushroom. There are also ten new outfits and, when released on 26 January, a bundle of Dead Cells and both DLCs will be available for $19.99/£19.99, and the Bad Seed DLC will receive its own price cut.

This will be far from the end for Dead Cells' exceptional post-launch support. In a blogpost near the end of 2020 Motion Twin wrote: "When The Bad Seed was announced last year we said there was at least 2 years worth of content left to build—and that's still the plan. Any maths geniuses out there will work out that there's at least a year of content to go, and we're pretty sure that we have more than that in our heads. To be honest, if we locked Joan alone in a room for a week he'd probably come out with about 20 years of content scribbled on the walls... Basically you can fully expect more of our regular updates to continue next year."

I think we can all agree: lock up Joan.

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."