Version 1.5, officially The Corrupted Update, is a major update to Dead Cells that was released on the 6th of November 2019 to PC, and on the 14th of November 2019 for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and the Nintendo Switch.

Important features

• Corrupted Confinement: A new optional (mini) biome has been added, mirroring Prison Depths. Both biomes are now very short, thought as challenged areas with one cursed chest at the beginning.
• Scroll Fragments: These are "quarters" of scrolls, called fragments, which began to appear at BC3+. Find four of them to make a whole triple scroll!
• Recycling Tubes: A new meta upgrade, unlockable when beating the Hand of The King for the first time in BC1. Replace the starting gear with four set of 5 random items (melee, range, shield and two skills). Choose one.
  • The first part of Dead Cells can be very tedious without any skills and the stat points that come with it. We hope that this upgrade will help with that.
• Explorer Instinct: A new rune, which reveal the whole map and its points of interest (scrolls, chest, merchants, etc.) when you've explored most of the level.
• Fewer Curse Chests : While we do think it's great mechanic, being forced to open all the curse chests to not fall behind on the curve (BC3+) can be frustrating. The chance of random cursed chest in each level has also been updated.
• New Tactic mutation: Crow's Foot
  • Dodge to place up to nine caltrops on the ground, damaging and slowing enemies.
• New Tactic mutation: Networking
  • Stick an arrow in two or more enemies to make them share the damage they take.
• New Tactic mutation: Tactical retreat
  • Dodging just in time slows nearby enemies and prevent them from inflicting malaise.
• Colorless items with stat boosts now increase your highest stat dynamically. Highest base stat, before the bonus given by other items is taken into account.
• Removed the possibility to equip two version of the same item. Think double boomerang or heavy turrets. Legendary items are not concerned by this restriction.
  • A Custom Mode option reverting this change has been added (locks achievements).
• Added a Custom Mode option to increase the number of mutations equipable (locks achievements).
• Community suggestion | Added a Custom Mode option to make every item colorless (locks achievements).
• Community suggestion | Two new achievements, including one for beating Gigantus without taking a single hit.
• Community suggestion | You now have to allow at least 20 items in the custom runs to unlock achievements.

Balancing

• Community suggestion | Remove hard damage cap of 99999 damage, in order to stop penalizing heavy hitting weapons against bosses. Very much monitoring this change, as it could causes unforeseen issues.
• Cannibal now pauses longer after it's third hit, giving you a new window of opportunity to strike.
• The Guardian's Haven now directly leads to the Throne Room.
• Community suggestion | Corrupted Power damage buff now scales with item level and quality.
• Protector platform cost increased (which means less mobs around).
• Great Owl of War blueprint drop rate increased
• Maximum number of Knife Thrower on one platform decreased.
• Sweepers platform cost increased (which means less mobs around).
• Community suggestion | The bestiary of Prisoners' Quarters, Promenade of the Condemned and Ramparts have been tweaked.
• Community suggestion | Scrolls spread in-between biomes has been slightly balanced to be more coherent with the difficulty of the level and to prevent some roads and biomes to be a clear better choice than its counterparts.
• Community suggestion | Cleaver cooldown reduced and health points increased.
• Community suggestion | Ice Crossbow now scales with Survival in addition to Tactics.
• Community suggestion | Frost Blast now scales with Survival in addition to Tactics.
• Ice Bow now dual-scales with survival in addition to Tactics. The idea behind green-scaling freezing items is to begin offering alternatives to shield in the secondary slot.
• Community suggestion | Lightning Bolt doesn't scale with Survival anymore
• Limited the spawn of Hammer to one per room instead of two.
• Community suggestion | Advanced Forge upgrade cell cost divided by 2.
• Community suggestion | Increased drop rate of blueprints dropped by Hammer.
• Increased the drop rate of Axe Thrower blueprint.
• Dark Tracker now drop the Hayabusa Boots at BC1+.
• Community suggestion | Prevent mobs from spawning in various secret zones, vine rooms, teleport rooms, etc.
• Community suggestion | Legendary items and items obtained in Cursed chests now have one bonus level in BC3+
• Improved detection of perfect dodges for mutations Adrenalin and Tactical retreat.
• Community suggestion | When unlocking an item at the Collector, the item now drops with a higher level and take your forge level into account.
• Community suggestion | Prevent the laser eyes and the cristal shower from happening at the same time while fighting the Giant.
• Community suggestion | Reduced Sweeper attack range.
• Community suggestion | Added some invulnerability frames for Telluric Shock.
• Community suggestion | The Shovel now repel all grenades in range.
• Community suggestion | Librarians now have a more limited detect range.
• Bosses skip their "tutorial" phase at BC1+. That means they're actually easier because they start with fewer HP, it's actually like you had beat their first phase without having been hit at all.
• Alienation now reduce Malaise as well.
• The resistance buff given by the Legendary Altars to the enemies around has been decreased.
• Frantic Sword now inflicts critical damage if you have less than 50% of your life or at least 50% of your Malaise bar filled up.

Level design

• Increased the size of the Flask Room to accomodate for the growing item pool.
• Prevent altars from spawnning in front of ladders.

Graphics & UI

• Added broken flasks in the Flask Room to show the items locked using Custom Mode.
• Community suggestion | Improved killstreak icon. The icon now change to display whether you already reached 30 or 60 enemies killed without taking damage during the level.
• Flipped Flint icon. Hello from the other siiiiiide...
• Community suggestion | Made some dedicated sprites for electric wall and gravity well traps.
• Added a couple of warning frames before Lightning Bolts starts hurting you. Power, with a few limitations.
• Community suggestion | Added icons on dropped items to show which items have starred or damage affixes.
• Lore rooms have now their own color on the map!
• The leech, double damage and quad damage affixes now have their own icons in item descriptions. Version 1.5.2

Quality of life

• Community suggestion | The timer is now paused in the Specialist's Shop.
• Community suggestion | Added an option to start with a random unlocked outfit.
• Community suggestion | Added an option to automatically skip cinematics.
• Community suggestion | Magic Missiles and Pyrotechnics now shoot automatically when holding down the attack button.
• Community suggestion | Added an option to display milliseconds during level loading and at the end of a run.
• Doors leading to sublevels are greyed up on the minimap once visited at least once.
• Community suggestion | Alpha saves have everything unlocked from the get go.
• Added a sound and a visual fx when Symetrical Lance and Oil Sword crit conditions end, and when Lightspeed's backdash ends without being used.
• Added a screen bound warning for enemies attacking from outside of the screen.
• Community suggestion | The grenade affix on weapons no longer un-freeze enemies. Version 1.5.2
• Community suggestion | Enemies under the effect of the Hunter's Grenade drop the Hunter's Grenade if killed accidently. Version 1.5.5
• Community suggestion | Uniformized the selling price for items on multi-choice altars. Be careful, the uniformization only applies while the item is still on the altar. No more back and forth to determine which item sells for the highest price. Version 1.5.6

Music & SFX

• Added a SFX for Adrenaline triggering. Version 1.5.1

Bug fixes

• Fixed Predator mutation having no cap for its duration.
• Fixed Bats not always facing the hero before attacking.
• Fixed Sweeper not always facing the hero before attacking.
• Fixed the transition between the Cavern and the Guardian's Haven having a higher item level than both levels.
• Fixed Parry Shield queuing attacks for a very long time.
• Prevent grenades from hitting you after you managed to kill the Hand of the King.
• Prevent being able to roll out of the boss room when the boss screams (and getting locked outside).
• Fixed a certain spoiler item hitting through walls. Version 1.5.1
• Fix not being able to drink a certain potion during a certain secret boss fight if the number of flask has been set to 0 with the Custom Mode. Version 1.5.4
• Fixed using Giant's Whistle during the Timekeeper fight sometimes bugging the boss. He always found a way to get on her nerves. Version 1.5.4

References