History VideoGame / DeadCells

* SkillGateCharacters: The Eletric Whip automatically targets enemies on different levels than you, and ignore the shieldbearer enemy's shield. And... that's pretty much it. Its damage output is very low, its range isn't that big, and just about every other weapon in the game has something that makes it a better pick once you know how to properly play the game. It's one saving grace is its ability to electrocute enemies standing in water or poison, but even that is dependant on biomes and not all that common in the first place.

* ChestMonster: These appear in the Bank in the guise of merchants. They behave as normal until you buy an item, at which point they reveal their true nature and devour the item you just bought. Defeat them, and you'll get either twice as many items as you would have gotten (if food), or an item two levels higher than what you bought (if a weapon or skill).

* PuppeteerParasite: The player character is a slime piloting a decapitated corpse.

* LethalJokeItem: The Vorpan is a frying pan that you can smack enemies with, like the one in the animated trailer. It also deals critical hits to enemies facing you, making it the easiest weapon to get crits with and giving it a surprisingly high damage output.

* NintendoHard: The game is a classic MetroidVania, which guarantees lots of opportunities for mistakes to be punished even at the lowest level of difficulty. Every boss cell added adjusts the population of each biome to include deadlier enemies, scales enemies up to higher and higher levels (while leaving player equipment unmodified unless cells are spent to upgrade the Cell Forge), and reduces opportunities for healing in between levels.

** A fifth DLC, "Return to Castlevania", was announced on December 8, 2022 during the 2022 Game Awards. As the name implies, this DLC will be a massive crossover with Creator/{{Konami}}'s ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' series. In it the Beheaded teams up with Richter Belmont and Alucard to battle hordes of monsters wielding iconic weapons from the Castlevania series to reach the throne room of the Dark Lord himself. It is set to release in Q1 2023.

* WhipItGood: There are a couple of whip items in the game. Though their damage is low, they have higher range than most weapons and can attack in multiple directions rather than just to the sides. The Wrenching Whip and Valmont's Whip also ignore shields and Thornies' spikes.

* UndergroundMonkey: There are a couple different kinds of bats that all work pretty much the same.

* OrcusOnHisThrone: Taken to its [[LogicalExtreme logical extreme]] with The King, as not only does he not appear at all until the end of the game, [[spoiler:he offers no resistance whatsoever, even after you kill his bodyguard and destroy the force field that protects him]]. The reason for this is simple, [[spoiler:he is merely the King's body, while the protagonist is the king's head/sentience.]]

** A second DLC (paid this time), "The Bad Seed", was released the February 11, 2020, adding two new biomes (the Arboreum and the Black Morass) and Mama Tick as a new boss as an alternative after the Prisoners' Quarters.

* AddedAliterativeAppeal: The Black Bridge, Derelict Distilery, and Slumbering Sanctuary.

** The "Enter the Panchaku'' update adds, well, frying pan nunchuks (called panchaku), ''two'' frying pans 'o doom tied together at the handle.

* FryingPanOfDoom: A frying pan is a Brutality-scaling melee weapon. It's fast, and does critical damage to enemies facing the player, with overall strong damage output, but it's very short-ranged compared to the more conventional swords and daggers.

* BreakingTheFourthWall: The player character does this infrequently, noting that using only a millstone to reforge items like bows or grenades is "shoddy game design", for example.

* DownTheDrain: The Toxic Sewers and Ancient Sewers, as the nams imply. Noticeably, they are the only levels where the water found in other levels is actually poison.

** The fifth DLC, "Return to Castlevania", is an entire DLC centered around ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'', complete with new biomes, new weapons, a new story featuring Richter Belmont and Alucard, and new bosses, including Death and Dracula himself.

** A fifth DLC, "Return to Castlevania", was announced on December 8, 2022 during the 2022 Game Awards. As the name implies, this DLC will be a massive crossover with Creator/{{Konami}}'s Franchise/{{Castlevania}}. In it the Beheaded teams up with Richter Belmont and Alucard to battle hordes of monsters wielding iconic weapons from the Castlevania series to reach the throne room of the Dark Lord himself. It is set to release in Q1 2023.

** A fifth DLC, "Return to Castlevania", was announced on December 8, 2022 during the 2022 Game Awards. As the name implies, this DLC will be a massive crossover with [[Creator/{{Konami}}]]'s [[Franchise/{{Castlevania}}]]. In it the Beheaded teams up with Richter Belmont and Alucard to battle hordes of monsters wielding iconic weapons from the Castlevania series to reach the throne room of the Dark Lord himself. It is set to release in Q1 2023.

* AnAxeToGrind: Shrapnel Axes are a pair of axes that fire ranged projectiles with each swing. The Boy's Axe is a throwing axe that immobilizes enemies. The Oven Axe is just a big axe.

*** The Servants drop their weapons; Calliope has the [[EpicFlail Wrecking Ball]], Euterpe has the [[GreatBow Gilded Yumi]], and Kleio has the [[DualTonfas Bladed Tonfas]]. Which weapon you get depends on which Servant you defeat last.

* FallingDamage: Downplayed; falling a fair distance doesn't hurt the protagonist, but they do become stunned for a few moments. [[GroundPound Slamming into the ground]] doesn't have this consequence, though, unless you do it from an extremely high distance, such as the long shaft leading from the Ramparts to the Black Bridge.

* GlassCannon: The item modifier "Deal and recieve 2x damage" turns the player into this. Exaggerated with the quadruple damage mod.

* GuideDangIt: Obtaining the Explosive Crossbow schematic. It's hidden behind three locked doors in the Promenade of the Condemned, which require one Gardener's Key each to open. The first two keys are behind areas that are signposted pretty obviously with "rune-required-to-progress-here" landmarks. The third? [[spoiler:Stomp a potted rose three times. The rose looks like just another random background element and it always spawns uphill in an area that rarely has enemies, so it's very unlikely that a player would find it by playing normally. At least the rose responds when it's stomped on, so a random or accidental stomp might reveal that it's important.]]

* {{Ninja}}: The main character has quite a few shades of this archetype, from the NinjaRun when powered up, to some of the weapons it can use, to the insane speed and acrobat ability it has in general. The player can also eventually get a rune that allows them to run up walls.
** [[spoiler:And the third boss, the Time Keeper, if only because of the shurikens she throws.]]

* WeHardlyKnewYe: [[spoiler:The woman you talk to in the beginning hub goes out and dies next to the door to the Promenade after a few runs. You can actually see her body decompose over the course of the next attempts.]]
** The Practice Makes Perfect update brings her back (now undead) as the NPC who runs the training room added in the update.
* WhamLine:
** [[spoiler:Should the Beheaded possess the King's body...]]
--> '''The Beheaded:''' Woo, look at that... [[spoiler:[[ReallyRoyaltyReveal My body is so well conserved!]]]]
** Earlier than that, defeating the Giant will have him call the Beheaded [[spoiler:"my King"]].

* GlassCannon: The item modifier "Deal and recieve 2x damage" turns the player into this. UpToEleven with the quadruple damage mod.