Dead Cells

About

Dead Cells is a 2D rogue-like "Metroidvania" style indie video game developed by Motion Twin released for all major platforms in August of 2018. In the game, players play through procedurally-generated levels collecting currency known as "cells" which they can use to purchase upgrades at the end of levels. If a player dies before spending their cells, they lose them.

History

Dead Cells was developed by Motion Twin.^[1] The game was developed to challenge players with "ridiculous" difficulty and appeal to hardcore gamers and fans of rogue-likes. Gameplay was inspired by Dark Souls and The Binding of Isaac. The game was released on Steam in early access on May 10th, 2017. The game then spread on YouTube Let's Play channels as streamers and reviewers including Super Best Friends Play and Zero Punctuation talked about the game on their channels.

In January of 2018, Motion Twin announced they were working on console releases and on August 7th, 2018, the game was released on Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, Xbox One, Mac OS, Windows, and Linux.

Reception

The game opened to very positive critical reviews. As of August 8th, 2018, the game has an 87/100 on Metacritic.^[2] Critics praised the game's "imaginative approach," art design and tight controls.

IGN Review Plagiarism Controversy

On July 24th, 2018, YouTube reviewer Boomstick Gaming posted a review of Dead Cells praising the game (shown below, left). Two weeks later, he posted a video noting how IGN's review of the game appeared to plagiarize his review in structure and almost completely in word choice (shown below, right).

In the description of the IGN comparison video, Boomstick Gaming provided text examples of how IGN's Nintendo editor Flip Miucin copied his review (examples shown below).

02:30 MYSELF: Dead Cells only falters slightly with some repetition setting in, especially on the early areas and during longer play sessions. The enemy designs here are interesting and fun to fight but in the first level alone you will probably have killed the same enemy about 50 times already and that same enemy will be used throughout various levels.
02:30 FILIP: Dead Cells does falter slightly with some repetition but its only felt in its earlier areas and during extended play sessions. While early level enemies are a good introduction and make for fun and interesting fights early on, you can only kill so many zombies before it starts feeling a little stale.

03:07 MYSELF: Dead Cells figures out and intriguing way to have your rogue lite and metroidvania experience all in one by focusing on your failures and urging you to try something new the next time.
03:07 FILIP: Dead Cells strikes a perfect and engaging balance between the metroidvania and rogue lite experiences by focusing on your failures and urging you to experiment when you do fail.

After the video was posted online, IGN pulled both their video and written reviews of the game and replaced the written review with a statement^[3] reading:

"As a group of writers and creators who value our own work and that of others in our field, the editorial staff of IGN takes plagiarism very seriously. In light of concerns that have been raised about our Dead Cells review, we’ve removed it for the time being and are investigating."

On August 7th, IGN announced that they had "parted ways" with Miucin, stating the amount of similarities between his review and Boomstick Gaming's was unacceptable. The controversy was covered by The Verge,^[3] Game Revolution,^[4] Forbes,^[5] an others.

Online Relevance

Dead Cells grew a strong online fandom in the year between its early access release and its official release. The game has a subreddit^[6] with over 11,000 subscribers and a Facebook^[7] page with over 8,200 likes.

Search Interest

External References