Dead Cells is among the most popular rogue-like games in the genre, having garnered many awards and maintaining an "overwhelmingly positive" review score on Steam. This quality craftsmanship of game development is reflected and continued by every DLC release for the game. However, the Return to Castlevania DLC might just be its most important release yet.
Dead Cells has had many DLCs and collaborations in the past. One of the most notable collaborations was during their Everyone Is Here update, where characters from other popular rogue-like games made appearances. However, Return to Castlevania is different. It isn't just a collaboration, but years of hard work and success finally paying off.
Return to Castlevania DLC Is a Return to Form
Dead Cells in released in 2017 to critical acclaim, with fans falling in love with the fast-paced combat and animated character trailers. The game has maintained its unique charm since then through constant free updates and occasional DLCs. It also helped that these free updates and DLCs add tons of new weapons, mutations, and challenges for players to tackle and experiment with. There was even the occasional addition of a hidden item in Dead Cells for players to hunt down. This helped in keeping the game fresh and relevant while also adding story content along the way for the sake of world-building.
A lot of this is thanks to Dead Cells' inspirations, of which there are many. One of the most notable ones is The Binding of Isaac, which is apparent through the item and ability-based gameplay, where players have to create an on-the-go build with the best Dead Cells weapons they can find. A more recent inspiration is Dark Souls, which mostly shows through its combat and inherent nature of killing the player as often as possible. However, none have provided as much inspiration for its setting, art style, and overall mechanics of the game as much as Castlevania.
The weight of this inspiration is referenced by the title of the DLC itself, Return to Castlevania. The developer of Dead Cells understand that its roots are in Castlevania, hence the DLC being referred to as a return. Return to Castlevania is even twice as big as previous DLCs, which explains why the price tag is double the usual amount. It is also reflective of the amount of effort the developer, Motion Twin, has put into it. Not only are new weapons, levels, and characters added to the game, but an entire new mode is included as well in order to truly capture the spirit of Dead Cells' main inspiration.
With the Return to Castlevania DLC, players can unlock the Richter Mode. This mode allows players to play as one of the protagonists of the Castlevania series, Richter Belmont. The character has access to all of his original special abilities and weapons, allowing players to relive nostalgia through this mode. This is entirely unlike previous DLCs, and shows just how meaningful it is meant to be. If there has been anything Dead Cells has been building up towards, it is the Return to Castlevania DLC. Motion Twin has taken the Metroidvania formula and its inspirations from Castlevania to create something that is reminiscent of the past but is entirely new in experience. There could even be a day when Dead Cells is remembered in the same way Castlevania is today.
Return to Castlevania could even be good news for mainline Castlevania games. It could serve to be a good reminder to Konami that there is still a market for the franchise and its style of gameplay. After all, Dead Cells would not have made it this far without Castlevania.
Dead Cells is available on Mobile, PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.