Evil Empire and Motion Twin worked together with Ablegamers to develop a huge new set of accessibility options with Dead Cells Breaking Barriers free update.
Breaking Barriers introduces a variety of optional accessibility settings for players. It offers players a signature “tough but fair” gameplay available to a wider audience for the first time.
Together with Ablegamers organization and various legends from the Dead Cells community worked closely with the developers over the past months. Their target was to design and test these new settings for people with disabilities, as well as the game’s new Assist Mode.
“The intent of this update is to allow players who struggle to, or cannot play, Dead Cells to be able to experience the game as we intended. We had feedback during beta testing that some people who don’t ‘need’ Assist Mode will use it regardless and the result is that they won’t play Dead Cells as a challenging roguelike,” said an Evil Empire spokesperson. “We’ve put multiple messages regarding this in-game, but in the end it’s up to the player how they want to enjoy the game. However, we will not disable achievements for players who use these options. We are not going to make it possible for people to play the game and then take achievements away from them.”
There are several new options with this new update and these include mobility input adjustments like the hold to second jump/roll, customizable controls and more. There are also visual options like UI size and transparency, font size/type, customizable background color filters, no-blood and many more.
Assist Mode has its own menu and has the following:
- Multiple lives – Each time you die you can resurrect from the beginning of the biome, in the same state that you started in. You can choose between 1, 3, 7 or infinite lives. This is targeted for players who have involuntary movements or activity, such as muscle spasms, to have another chance if their run is ruined by something that is out of their control.
- Auto-hit – Automatically target nearby enemies with your primary melee weapon. This will automatically attack with your primary weapon, allowing players to just manage their secondary weapon and skills, reducing the need for rapid inputs.
- Adjustable trap damage, enemy damage and enemy health in % increments, plus toggable options for slower parry window and trap speed. This is meant to allow specific, dare we say delicate, adjustment of the game’s challenge while leaving the rest of the game as it is.
- An option to instantly reveal the whole map for players who struggle with spatial awareness.
The Breaking Barriers update also has eight new weapon reworks, and a reduction in early-game item cost to allow players to unlock new weapons more quickly. There are also important life and gold upgrades.
“If you’re a Dead Cells player who doesn’t need any of the content that we’re introducing in this update, don’t worry,” said the spokesperson. “We have plenty of shiny new things to introduce to Dead Cells this year.”
Dead Cells is now available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch.
Source: Press Release