Dead Cells' Corrupted Update is a guaranteed way to get cursed
More biomes for your buck
Motion Twin could probably stop developing side-on pixel slicer Dead Cells and everything would be just fine. It would leave behind an "Overwhelmingly Positive" review tag on Steam and a beautiful corpse. But they’re still fiddling with it, and the 15th update has just gone live. A new biome has been added, along with a new rune, a new meta upgrade, and more.
The addition of a new biome is a tweak to the structure of the game. The Corrupted Confinement is a very short adjunct to the main world that gives the player a guaranteed area with a cursed chest. It’s an optional route, through a nasty little section of the game, but the chest will always have a powerful weapon alongside a guaranteed curse for those who open it. It's there to balance out the fact that cursed chests are now a lot rarer. It’s just part of an overall attempt to remove optimal routes from the game, to encourage exploring and keep you on your dead toes. Every biome and scroll has been rebalanced with this in mind.
Explorer’s Instinct feels like a rune made for me. It’s a buff that reveals the rest of the map when you’ve uncovered a large amount of the map. It’s a lovely idea to take the frustration out of those final few steps of corridor wandering.
If you’re playing at a high level, a new meta upgrade to the game kicks in after you’ve defeated the Hand of the King boss at Boss Cells level 1 (you big show off). They’re recycling tubes, and they replace the random gear upgrades with a choice between four sets of five items. You don’t get to choose what’s in the sets, but you do get to choose what set to grab, to give you a bit more control over your next dungeon run.
And you can start that run right now, as the update is already live.