Dead Cells: The Bad Seed DLC

Dead Cells have become an immense gaming experience over the last two years since its release on early access. The game has evolved into something amazing, a randomized, dungeon crawler that takes influence from Souls games. It’s difficult, fast, frantic and absolutely joyous in many ways. The developers, Twin Motion, have been wonderful in giving out updates and free content with the Hand of the King, Corrupted update and The Giant. All of these added several new layers into the gameplay, story, and world design while not changing much in the core gameplay.



So comes along an actual piece of paid DLC known as The Bad Seed DLC which some fans might be taken back by. Before we continue with our review, we say that Twin Motion has done a great job with Dead Cells, evolving the game over the last year with new updates, refining the gameplay and overall just releasing an excellent game. So paying a small amount for the DLC is not asking much. But is it worth picking up and will it enhance the whole experience?

The Bad Seed offers two new areas, a new boss battle and a few new rewards/gear to unlock. The new areas take place in a botanical garden and a large nest of bug-like creatures with things ending up in a huge arena where you have to fight mama tick. Each of the two new levels has a different approach in terms of layout. The first section is divided into two key locations with each one leading to another area. One side’s exit will take you back to the Ramparts and the other will take you deeper into the Nest. Similar to a location like a clock tower, but more confined and less spaced out, which is fine as it doesn’t feel long-winded. The other is a lot more like the caverns but broken up into three extremely confined locations, with a mini-boss in between.



The first location is nothing special but different enough from both the Promenade of the Dead and the Toxic Sewers. It feels like a mixture of the two which is a good thing, breaking up the formula of the first two main locations but sort of combing the best elements of both. This area is fairly linear but interestingly enough, you can venture to the left or right and tackle two very different segments of the same level. So you can just venture to one side and keep on track for a faster run, or explore everything outright and have a level that feels pretty grand in scale.

There is a secret room with an interesting Jar let’s say and of course, certain things do alter when you have a certain amount of boss cells activated. But to see the room appear was random and if you want to see this room, you may have to play this level a few times over.

The second area to me was much more compelling as it felt like an intense, cluster mess where absolute carnage can happen. It’s more like a gauntlet style, where it’s confined and filled to the brim with enemies. Now depending on your build, this can be an absolute blast or a little bit of a grind. But in most instances with anyone critical item, you can make it through and have some fun. Something like an oil grenade and flame grenade combo will help out immensely whereas turrets aren’t so useful here. Plus, there are mini-bosses that differ from any of the standard enemies in these new locations and help break up the three main segments to the level. The enemies are fine overall, not adding much to the difficulty or any dramatic attack patterns or behaviors compared to some of the new additions in the “Corrupt” update. But the main boss is pretty enjoyable, being a bigger boss like the Giant, having brutal sweeping attacks but also having massive hit points so you can deal some devastating damage yourself.



Overall, Dead Cell’s “The Bad Seed” is a pretty decent DLC package that adds another compelling path to the main game. The Bad Seeds adds in everything that is good such as new weapons, outfits, enemies and another layer to the lore. While the lore itself is nothing special, it’s great to see another location, one that’s really colourful and pretty different from much else in the game, being lighter and more colourful. The new enemies aren’t much of a challenge but the boss is awesome and the design for both new levels works extremely well as explorative and immense combat experiences.

This is definitely a DLC package I can back and for the price, adds more replay value for your ultimate Dead Cells experience.

++ Great level design and gameplay
+ Visually impressive
+ Adds another layer of compelling lore
- New enemies aren't anything challenging or interesting

An Xbox One review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.