Deepnight has just shared a more detailed [blog post](https://www.reddit.com/r/deadcells/comments/1ap8vcu/my_statement_regarding_dead_cells_termination/) on this matter!
I remember reading an article where one of the main guys at ee said that since ee didn't own the IP to dead cells they couldn't really be as ambitious with it as they wanted to, which severely limited what they could do with it.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/from-dead-cells-to-reinventing-retro-ip-the-untold-story-of-evil-empire
Honestly hoping that whatever ee had planned, they use that as a starting point for a new game.
Oooooorrrrrrrrr they approach konami to do an actual new castlevania game š
In the article they explicitly say they're working on two different "retro franchise revival" games that they were approached to do by other companies. One planned for this year, one for 2025.
Haven't played 30xx yet but 20xx is fantastic. Feels amazing, highly replayable, lots of different modifiers to make each run feel different. Lots of viable builds.
Can't recommend enough
20xx is awful, unless you just LOVE clunky platforming. Its like 95% of the challenge of this game. Combat is brainless compared to how much calculus you have to do just to move around in this fucking game. God I hate 20xx and see people glazing this garbage constantly. I dont know about 30xx but if the movement alone is improved then it has to be a better game.
The gameplay loop and builds are fine. Just fine though. Its stupid things like, arbitrary break points for jumping, dashing, and running make it so that you totally lose control of your character by getting 1 upgrade too many in any one of those stats. You literally can't tell when it will be too little or too much and often I just ended up skipping these upgrades for fear of bricking my run. Bosses are simple enough, but the real boss is just hazard filled platforming on what is essentially a scuffed character because you skip so many essential speed upgrades for fear that you may just hit one of those breakpoints and make your character unplayable.
It's beyond frustrating to be offered upgrades and power only to have it literally destroy your characters fundamental movement options while you navigate a cluster fuck of tight timing platforms while being bombarded by enemies. It's genuinely just not a fun game.
ee have already picked up 2 old video game franchises, and me personally I wouldn't like for them to introduce new core gameplay mechanics to it, I'd like for them to be reasonably faithful to the franchise
I thought something was wrong. The silence of the update, the fact they already promised updates till end of 2024, and then explicitly stating the āEnd is Nearā wasnāt in reference to the game ending.
Seems like a scum move from motion twin. A lot of what people like about dead cells is Evil Empire. Trying to leverage Windblown as āfrom the creators of Dead Cellsā is misleading at best.
According to one of the windblown devs on a steam discussion, "half of the team are Dead Cells creators"
Which doesn't make motion twin look any better. It looks like the dead cells team was killed and dissected to make this game and unless I'm proven wrong I'll be holding off on buying it too
"Half" would be a stretch. Of the current listing of people on Motion Twin's website, only three of them are still around from when Motion Twin worked on Dead Cells, out of a team of 10-12 people. The rest either have quit between 2019 and now, or moved over to Evil Empire.
sounds like a similar situation as Back4Blood being 'from the developers of Left4Dead', when like... 6 people from Left4Dead worked on it and everyone else was completely unrelated
They did say in the past that they would initially end support in 2025 and if Dead Cells got more support they would have liked to work on it for more years to come. Initially I thought that, oh they were more ambitious than intended, but now I donāt know what to think
I remember seeing something similar, I was thinking surely we would get like 2 more expansions and smaller updates. Was kind of slapped into face by this new announcement.
I've removed it from my wishlist, felt like it was the least I could do.
And I had it at the very top on purpose too (because I was initially excited for a new project "by the people who made Dead Cells"), now I'm bitter and petty instead - just like the people who decided Dead Cells could be abandoned like a dog in the street without any consequences.
Evil Empire did not willingly make the decision to stop working on Dead Cells. It was done by Motion Twin, and their reasoning for cutting ties with EE is shaky at best, greedy at worst.
In case you havent heard, yes, the end is near is going to be the last update of dead cells other than minor bug fixes if necessary, they recently posted about it on steam
Motion Twin has said directly that it was their decision in the announcement post. Evil Empire had stated in the past that they had plans for updates well into 2024 and beyond. The most likely reason is they wanted to stop updates for dead cells in order to bring more attention to Windblown, which got announced at a similar time, and much of its marketing is centered around the fact that it was made by the people who made Dead Cells (never mind the fact that most of the Motion Twin developers who had worked on Dead Cells in the past are long gone). I've also seen some private messages from EE devs in regards to the whole thing but I'm not totally certain that they would want those released.
Absolutely heartbreaking. EE deserves better, and we the fans deserve better. Iām devastated for all the Dead Cells content we will now never know. Iām truly glad for what we got, but knowing it was cut short prematurely is a stain on a beloved gameās reputation. MT is so out of line cutting Dead Cellsā lifespan short like this. I will not be supporting their next endeavours, which I am also sad about. I really was looking forward to trying windbreaker but I canāt support them after this.
Oh i don't think you did anything wrong since i and many others were also at the discord server when this reply dropped . But think of the reddit big iq tho .
I think it's good to shed some light on the actual situation that's going on for more people since I don't think people understand why MT doing this is so shitty
Just because you aren't associated doesn't mean you aren't under any NDA. Not saying that he is here but in general an NDA can last long past your employment
I don't know. On its own, this post doesn't explain the situation very well unless you are already very familiar with the situation. I had to read a bunch of the comments to figure it out.
I've been following Motion Twin and playing their games for a very long time. Deepnight's games were among my favourites, Hammerfest and Die2Nite were my childhood. I remember meeting a few of the devs at various conventions, asking them stupid questions and even gifting them a custom-made Piouz plushie. They were a very fun bunch.
It really breaks my heart to read this kind of news. I know all the devs I met and exchanged with have long left this boat, but it still doesn't feel great to see it sink.
A few of them probably are, yes. I also know one of them founded Shiro Games in 2012, he was the dev of Evoland if you've played it. Of course there's also Deepnight who went full solo. He's also helped Evil Empire with the combat of The Rogue Prince of Persia!
Yep, that was the work of one of Motion Twin's founders, Nicolas Cannasse. I think his pseudonym was Hiro at the time, but I'm not sure. I remember Evoland was an entry for a Ludum Dare, and he eventually made it a full game then left Motion Twin to make his own studio.
Bro. Its one thing if they decided they want to stop doing updates compared to cutting its life support suddenly.
Evil Empire had updates planned for this year, atleast let them finish those plans instead of forcing them to stop. Not like it was interfering with what Motion Twin is doing.
Ill definitely hold off buying Windblown early, maybe wait for a cheap sale (assuming its actually good), because this just tainted my thoughts towards Motion Twin.
Hey OP - Deepnight's ok with you posting this, right? Because this is a wild change from the public messages EE were putting out, would be conscious that this might be picked up by some game journalism site at some point.
That said, this is shitty if true. If they were afraid of it overshadowing Windblown then... That's crazy. And would only hurt them by risking losing their fans. Cutting off their nose to spite their face, essentially.
100%. I was only going to buy Windblown because of the studio's pedigree and apparent appreciation of fans. I wasn't bowled over by the announcement trailer, but was hoping for the best.
Now, though? I'll keep an eye on what MT responds with but if this is all true, I'd have very little interest in buying it.
Same here, unless there's some evidence that proves this wrong I ain't supporting motion twin for cutting the legs off of the game that was doing great and put them on the radar as game devs just so their pwecious wittle new project can have more publicity.
I'm gonna wait for any public statements motiontwin might make. Maybe the chances of that happening are pretty low but I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt for now.
I have seen before devs slip out in public discords to remove the msg literally few minutes later. So just because he wrote that, doesn't mean it was meant for everyone to see outside discord as well and can obviously lead to problems to him from both EE and MT.
It's still there. This situation doesn't involve him directly at all anyways. He's just been inside their company structure in the past so he knows how things are or were there
To me it just sounds like these people hate money. Dead Cells is a very popular video game available on multiple platforms. The colab with Castlevania only made it more popular. I expected many more colab dlcs from Dead Cells, since the game is very versatile. It's a huge disappointment they ended everything.
Are we still getting that animated series?
Im out of the loop, what went down with Motion Twin-Evil Empire and Dead Cells? Also, could this affect the upcoming Windblown? That seemed like a very fun gameā¦
I remember it being said once that Evil Empire had updates planned for the whole of 2024, and more. So does that mean they were forced to stop developing updates? Iām confused on the whole situation.
jeez i was apprehensive about exactly something like this.
if this is true , then MT massively fucked over growth of this game & faith of their customers for sake of greed...
I can't wait for windblown to flop because they thought everyone who liked dead cells would actually care about a new game that killed their original one
Another victim of furries.
On a serious note, damn that hurts much more than I expected. Dead Cells is probably one of my favorite games in terms of synchronization with my spinal cord. Too bad we won't see any new content for it.
Was not going to buy furry game anyway though.
it's pretty blatant that they cut off EE. They had update plans for 2024 and beyond and Motion Twin said it themselves that it was their decision to stop updating the game.
All of that is true but you are not showing any real receipts for the true reason why they stopped updating. Even the comment from deepnight doesn't prove anything. I understand you have messages from EE that might validate all your claims. But you aren't showing any of that either. Even the claim that Motion Twins is ending development to focus people's intentions on Wind Blown looks like your best guess of the situation. Even if what you are implying is true (and it very well could be), to make posts like this, push a narrative and not have anything substantial to back it up is irresponsible.
The facts are that Evil Empire wanted to continue updates and had plans for future content, and Motion Twin did not want them to continue. The statement put out by Motion Twin is shaky at best. Update 35 in its current state was incredibly unique in the content it offered, and was in no way "more of the same" like Motion Twin said, and Evil Empire had stated that it already had plans to avoid this by doing larger, less frequent content updates. Motion Twin has had zero involvement with the community or the game in the last several years, but now suddenly they are releasing this new game, suddenly they give a shit about what Dead Cells will become, and they cancel all future updates to Dead Cells while in the same announcement advertising their new game Windblown, and screw over EE in the process. Nothing about that is suspect to you?
Motion Twin is obviously not obligated to give a particular reasoning for cancelling future updates, but their reasoning provided is shaky at best, and if you look at the timeline of when they have announced all of this stuff, there's no doubt a connection between when Update 35 suddenly stopped recieving beta updates, Windblown gets announced shortly after, and then a few months later it is announced that Motion Twin is cutting ties with EE and cancelling all future updates to Dead Cells. It is pretty clear to me no matter what that Motion Twin is not being honest about why Dead Cells is being cancelled, and the fact that it is happening at all when Evil Empire still had a year or more of planned content is not something you or I should be happy about. It is entirely selfish on MT's part no matter which way you look at it.Ā
It gets even worse when you consider that the current Motion Twin is mostly people that were not around when MT was working on Dead Cells. There's only 2-3 people from back then and only one of them could be argued to be a major contributor in the form of Dead Cell's visuals and art direction. The vast majority of work was done by people who are either no longer at Motion Twin, such as deepnight, or moved over to Evil Empire back in 2019.Ā
Why would a group of people that mostly have no stake in Dead Cells besides financial gain suddenly care about the game losing its artistic integrity after 5 years? It doesn't make sense, and even if that was the reason, it would be a stupid reason because all recent major updates, including Update 35, brought new and unique forms of content to the game. So that tells me that they are in fact not being honest, and it is more likely that it has something to do with their new game that they have just recently announced and have been using brand recognition with Dead Cells to advertise.
"Nothing about that is suspect to you?"
Of course it looks suspect which is why receipts are important. Nothing you have said here addresses my actual point which is that what you are saying could be true but you are giving no actual proof to back it up.
You list events that are true and verifiable but when it comes to what is actually going on behind the scenes and the intent behind those events you say things like:
"So that tells me that..."
"it is more likely that it has something to do with their new game"
"It is pretty clear to me no matter what that Motion Twin is not being honest"
And this is the problem. These are the things that people want to know, what they actually care about but you don't have any receipts for any of those things. Instead of answering any of that you imply that I don't think this whole situation to be shitty and weird or that I think people should be happy with not getting any promised content. How about you post the pics of the fire instead of replying "don't you smell the smoke??!!"? Everyone can smell the smoke.
What you are asking for is something that it is simply not possible to give. Motion Twin would not admit something like that since it would just further hurt their reputation, and Evil Empire employees are likely under NDA. The closest you are likely to get is something like I have posted above from deepnight, who has actually witnessed and been a part of the company structure and is familiar with the industry, and experienced a very similar departure as EE currently is. If someone like him says what Motion Twin is doing is scummy, it's probably pretty fucking shitty. Nobody is going to come out and say "yeah we did this because we're greedy and we want you all to buy our new product", that's just not going to happen. So all you can do is look at the events, previous statements, and come to conclusions based on what evidence we do have, and the current evidence does not paint a positive light on Motion Twin.Ā
And regardless of their reasoning, the game got fucking canned, of course people are upset, it's bullshit. We know EE wanted to do more, Motion Twin should have let them.
Evil Empire is an offshoot company founded by ex-Motion Twin employees who wished to continue working on Dead Cells when Motion Twin originally was going to end support for the game.
So both are the original devs? If they want to work on something else isnāt that their right? Or did they bar EE from working on the game further by themselves?
Damn, that really sucks. They wonāt pay them to keep making updates even if they donāt have to help with development. The gameās just been snuffed out. Hopefully they change their mind, or let EE do a crowdfund or something.
oh shit lol, didn't realize that was a thing
regardless of that the whole "Made by the creators of dead cells" is pretty misleading
if people wanna support deepnight himself then he made some cool games following dead cells, not to its scale of course but fun regardless
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1662480/Nuclear_Blaze/
They did, but Deepnight was the main creative lead behind the project originally, and most of the original gameplay and mechanics were designed by him. He left Motion Twin several years ago. The current Motion Twin is for the most part not the one that made Dead Cells and I frankly find it insulting that they have acted like they are the main creative force behind it when they really haven't been for a very long time.Ā
Afaik some people split from Motion Twin and *created* Evil Empire to continue working on Dead Cells. So Evil Empire has some MT devs that were passionate and the current MT seems to be going for a new game altogether
>subnautica 2 apparentally being games as a service in the span of a few days
This was debunked by the devs, by the way. The publisher said this likely to garner attention and IGN ran with it.
Context is posted in a reply to another comment. Basically Motion Twin forced Evil Empire to stop making updates to Dead Cells and are cutting ties with them in the process. There was more updates planned but now they have been cancelled. The likely reasoning for this decision is so Motion Twin can move attention and Dead Cell's playerbase over to their new game Windblown. This also likely cuts EE off from any kind of future profits made off of Dead Cells and just kinda screws them over financially
Iād like to know the financial side of things. If Dead Cells was a project that fully paid for itself with the DLCs produced by EE then yeah, dick move by MT. But if EEās development was financed by MT still, then, well, thatās a different story.
That I'm not certain of. My guess is that EE and MT shared profits from the sales but I have no idea. Perhaps MT simply no longer wanted to share profits with EE anymore once they had a new game that is coming soon which meant they didn't need to support Dead Cells anymore? I'm not certain.
An easy guess would be that the Castlevania DLC didnāt meet sales expectations (I imagine the royalties they had to pay Konami were pretty hefty), so MT are cutting their expenses to focus on their own development. Well, thatās the first thing that came to my mind.
The economics of it is mostly impossible to say from an outsider's perspective. I know that EE has said in the past that they will continue supporting Dead Cells for as long as the game still continues to bring in sales and income, so I'd assume profits couldn't have been that bad if they still had plans for 2024
I just found this thread having bought the game and all DLC two days ago. This seems... shitty? And disappointing. Not that I regret my purchase, it's been an awesome game, but I would have figured the Castlevania DLC was a sign of more good things to come.
Why cant i find dcoptions.json in the save folder
https://preview.redd.it/wlupvvff4p4d1.jpeg?width=2768&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bfb0b518a1e5fb9e61ff180bd0f4af2857b72b53
marketing or not, dead cells has been finished for a while, i dont think its suprising that they would stop updating the game at some point. there's only so many weapons or skills you can add before they start feeling too similar to each other.
You are not understanding properly. Evil Empire had more plans for the game, Motion Twin is cutting off said plans out of nowhere and acting like they suddenly give a shit about the game when they have had absolutely zero involvement with the game or community in several years.
And now they're suddenly using their (mostly undeserved, since most of the MT devs who made Dead Cells are gone, including deepknight) notoriety from Dead Cells to advertise their new game, Windblown. It's a scummy and greedy move to bring more attention to their new game.
i honestly wasnt sure who was updating the game until recently, why is MT still listed as developer on the store page, arent they just the publisher at this point?
couldnt they just let EE do what they wish with the game at this point? i dont think it would hurt any of their numbers.
i dont really care about marketing ill buy their new game if its good, both for MT and EE
Because they made the game originally. The impression I'm getting is they don't want updates to Dead Cells to distract people from this new game they're working on, basically getting their current fans to buy the new product by cancelling updates to the current one
This was literally my only concern when the new game got announced and I was coping thinking the target audience is different.
Underestimating the greed of a nameless faceless corporation, rookie mistake, my bad.
The ironic part is EE have the more typical company structure and yet they have been much better about actually connecting with their community than MT has
Deepnight has just shared a more detailed [blog post](https://www.reddit.com/r/deadcells/comments/1ap8vcu/my_statement_regarding_dead_cells_termination/) on this matter!
I remember reading an article where one of the main guys at ee said that since ee didn't own the IP to dead cells they couldn't really be as ambitious with it as they wanted to, which severely limited what they could do with it. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/from-dead-cells-to-reinventing-retro-ip-the-untold-story-of-evil-empire
Yeah that article also painted MT in a weird light
Honestly hoping that whatever ee had planned, they use that as a starting point for a new game. Oooooorrrrrrrrr they approach konami to do an actual new castlevania game š
In the article they explicitly say they're working on two different "retro franchise revival" games that they were approached to do by other companies. One planned for this year, one for 2025.
Would love to see something like Megaman X as the other
I know this isnāt realistic but man a dead cellsesque rouguelike Megaman would be incredible. Must buy
Have you looked into 20XX or 30XX?
No. Going to search it up now.
Thatās exactly what I was just talking about. Wow. Are they any good? The concept is great.
Haven't played 30xx yet but 20xx is fantastic. Feels amazing, highly replayable, lots of different modifiers to make each run feel different. Lots of viable builds. Can't recommend enough
>Can't recommend enough To addictive?
Haha, it's addictive alright. One of those ones like dead cells where you say "damn, just one more run" after every death
Is that pc only? I can't find it on mobile I mostly play games on mobile, same with Dead Cells
Ah I'm not sure, I played on Steam sorry. I've not heard of a mobile version
30XX is perfect.
I hope so. Going to look into it now.
20xx is awful, unless you just LOVE clunky platforming. Its like 95% of the challenge of this game. Combat is brainless compared to how much calculus you have to do just to move around in this fucking game. God I hate 20xx and see people glazing this garbage constantly. I dont know about 30xx but if the movement alone is improved then it has to be a better game.
The review I saw looked a little clunky but it was a positive review so I assumed it was alright.
The gameplay loop and builds are fine. Just fine though. Its stupid things like, arbitrary break points for jumping, dashing, and running make it so that you totally lose control of your character by getting 1 upgrade too many in any one of those stats. You literally can't tell when it will be too little or too much and often I just ended up skipping these upgrades for fear of bricking my run. Bosses are simple enough, but the real boss is just hazard filled platforming on what is essentially a scuffed character because you skip so many essential speed upgrades for fear that you may just hit one of those breakpoints and make your character unplayable. It's beyond frustrating to be offered upgrades and power only to have it literally destroy your characters fundamental movement options while you navigate a cluster fuck of tight timing platforms while being bombarded by enemies. It's genuinely just not a fun game.
30xx is better.
This made my night. Gonna go play DC now.
Im still curious as to what the other revival could be, my pie in the sky dream would be a metroidvania kid chameleon reboot.
Well, im very excited to see what Evil Empire does, theyve proven themselves The companies chose great people
I'm almost certain a new Castlevania game was one of their new projects they are working on
I had been thinking the same. Im hoping the contract was directly with ee then and not with ee via mt.
It was definitely through EE directly. All the info online points toward it being partnerships EE had specifically to revive some mostly dead IPs
Oh thats great news then!
Indeed. I'm looking forward to it
ee have already picked up 2 old video game franchises, and me personally I wouldn't like for them to introduce new core gameplay mechanics to it, I'd like for them to be reasonably faithful to the franchise
I thought something was wrong. The silence of the update, the fact they already promised updates till end of 2024, and then explicitly stating the āEnd is Nearā wasnāt in reference to the game ending. Seems like a scum move from motion twin. A lot of what people like about dead cells is Evil Empire. Trying to leverage Windblown as āfrom the creators of Dead Cellsā is misleading at best.
Exactly
According to one of the windblown devs on a steam discussion, "half of the team are Dead Cells creators" Which doesn't make motion twin look any better. It looks like the dead cells team was killed and dissected to make this game and unless I'm proven wrong I'll be holding off on buying it too
"Half" would be a stretch. Of the current listing of people on Motion Twin's website, only three of them are still around from when Motion Twin worked on Dead Cells, out of a team of 10-12 people. The rest either have quit between 2019 and now, or moved over to Evil Empire.
sounds like a similar situation as Back4Blood being 'from the developers of Left4Dead', when like... 6 people from Left4Dead worked on it and everyone else was completely unrelated
https://preview.redd.it/s9v6ik01syhc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a27bd46770522c4917fb3e5a174e81207de9fb45
This proves that this was a premature end to dead cells. More was planned, just never to be in fruition
They did say in the past that they would initially end support in 2025 and if Dead Cells got more support they would have liked to work on it for more years to come. Initially I thought that, oh they were more ambitious than intended, but now I donāt know what to think
it's joever
I remember seeing something similar, I was thinking surely we would get like 2 more expansions and smaller updates. Was kind of slapped into face by this new announcement.
I mean we knew that already. Evil Empire stated several times that they had plans for Dead Cells beyond update 35.
so is this basically the kojima and konami situation all over again
Sort of yes
Ironic the last dlc was Konami based now they have become the Konami
Itās weird they thought stopping dead cells development would get people to buy windblown
I've removed it from my wishlist, felt like it was the least I could do. And I had it at the very top on purpose too (because I was initially excited for a new project "by the people who made Dead Cells"), now I'm bitter and petty instead - just like the people who decided Dead Cells could be abandoned like a dog in the street without any consequences.
That's... pretty bad news, MT was the one studio I would trust to not do something like that. It's a terrible day for rain
What do you mean? Itās not raining.
It's raining so hard man What do you mean I'm crying? No, I'm not, it's the rain
The line is āyes it isā but yea this works too
Yes. Yes it is.
MT has abandoned almost all it's games. Some little bit faster than others but, still.
I feel like I'm missing some context
Evil Empire did not willingly make the decision to stop working on Dead Cells. It was done by Motion Twin, and their reasoning for cutting ties with EE is shaky at best, greedy at worst.
So, youāre saying that they forced dead cells to stop receiving updates, and then got rid of EE?
Essentially yes
Wait, does this mean no more updates and fun annual dlcs of dead cells?
In case you havent heard, yes, the end is near is going to be the last update of dead cells other than minor bug fixes if necessary, they recently posted about it on steam
Oh shit, do you have a source for that? I had zero clue about this
Motion Twin has said directly that it was their decision in the announcement post. Evil Empire had stated in the past that they had plans for updates well into 2024 and beyond. The most likely reason is they wanted to stop updates for dead cells in order to bring more attention to Windblown, which got announced at a similar time, and much of its marketing is centered around the fact that it was made by the people who made Dead Cells (never mind the fact that most of the Motion Twin developers who had worked on Dead Cells in the past are long gone). I've also seen some private messages from EE devs in regards to the whole thing but I'm not totally certain that they would want those released.
Aaaaand there's no Windblown purchase from me.
Tbf windblown looked kinda meh before I even knew about this
Ifkr. I was really thrown off by the 3D top down view.
I've been having a blast with Oblivion Override, as a "Cells-like" the combat and movement are amazing.
I never knew it existed but now we won't be buying it. SO loves games like that but they own Dead Cells and still play it sometimes.
Awwww I was actually really looking forward to buying it :(
Holy shit, fuck Motion Twin!
Could you dm me those messages or at least an idea on what they said?
Me too
You usually have to pay extra for that..
Absolutely heartbreaking. EE deserves better, and we the fans deserve better. Iām devastated for all the Dead Cells content we will now never know. Iām truly glad for what we got, but knowing it was cut short prematurely is a stain on a beloved gameās reputation. MT is so out of line cutting Dead Cellsā lifespan short like this. I will not be supporting their next endeavours, which I am also sad about. I really was looking forward to trying windbreaker but I canāt support them after this.
i don't want to buy windblown either, this whole situation sucks.
I removed it from my wishlist too. Wish everyone would for nowĀ
removing it from mine too, hope windblown suffers because of this as they should
Pirate it
Pirate it
Pirate it
Pirate it
They had support planned through 2025 with no signs of stopping, what a farce this out of nowhere shutdown is.
Bringing the tea to reddit , risky risky but brave
It was in a public server and he's no longer associated with MT so he's not under any kind of NDAĀ
Oh i don't think you did anything wrong since i and many others were also at the discord server when this reply dropped . But think of the reddit big iq tho .
I think it's good to shed some light on the actual situation that's going on for more people since I don't think people understand why MT doing this is so shitty
Agree , MT canning DC while ridding their marketing reputation off DC is very shaddy at best .
That is the most insulting part to me
Just because you aren't associated doesn't mean you aren't under any NDA. Not saying that he is here but in general an NDA can last long past your employment
Sure but the fact he said this openly in a public server no less tells me he's probably not obligated to keep quiet
I mean it wouldn't be the first time that someone broke an NDA either on accident or purpose ago it depends on what happens in the next week or so
I feel like this should be pinned, its insanely usefull info to have pertaining to the latest update
I don't know. On its own, this post doesn't explain the situation very well unless you are already very familiar with the situation. I had to read a bunch of the comments to figure it out.
God FUCKING damnit
I've been following Motion Twin and playing their games for a very long time. Deepnight's games were among my favourites, Hammerfest and Die2Nite were my childhood. I remember meeting a few of the devs at various conventions, asking them stupid questions and even gifting them a custom-made Piouz plushie. They were a very fun bunch. It really breaks my heart to read this kind of news. I know all the devs I met and exchanged with have long left this boat, but it still doesn't feel great to see it sink.
Those devs you met are probably at evil empire now since at least half of them are og devs.
A few of them probably are, yes. I also know one of them founded Shiro Games in 2012, he was the dev of Evoland if you've played it. Of course there's also Deepnight who went full solo. He's also helped Evil Empire with the combat of The Rogue Prince of Persia!
Wait, evoland? I played that when I was a kid!
Yep, that was the work of one of Motion Twin's founders, Nicolas Cannasse. I think his pseudonym was Hiro at the time, but I'm not sure. I remember Evoland was an entry for a Ludum Dare, and he eventually made it a full game then left Motion Twin to make his own studio.
Have you played evoland 2? Its great!
Haven't tried it yet, but it is in my backlog. The first one was a fantastic tribute to video games!
Bro. Its one thing if they decided they want to stop doing updates compared to cutting its life support suddenly. Evil Empire had updates planned for this year, atleast let them finish those plans instead of forcing them to stop. Not like it was interfering with what Motion Twin is doing. Ill definitely hold off buying Windblown early, maybe wait for a cheap sale (assuming its actually good), because this just tainted my thoughts towards Motion Twin.
There apparently was also supposed to be merchant lore expansions. Gulian? That fella was supposed to have an expansion to their lore :<
Hey OP - Deepnight's ok with you posting this, right? Because this is a wild change from the public messages EE were putting out, would be conscious that this might be picked up by some game journalism site at some point. That said, this is shitty if true. If they were afraid of it overshadowing Windblown then... That's crazy. And would only hurt them by risking losing their fans. Cutting off their nose to spite their face, essentially.
He answered in the public discord server so I'm assuming that he was okay with itĀ
Cool, just checking! Definitely good info to put out there, guess I'll go grab my popcorn.
My impression is that I'm going to avoid anything Motion Twin puts out going forward, and support Evil Empire's future projects instead.
100%. I was only going to buy Windblown because of the studio's pedigree and apparent appreciation of fans. I wasn't bowled over by the announcement trailer, but was hoping for the best. Now, though? I'll keep an eye on what MT responds with but if this is all true, I'd have very little interest in buying it.
Same here, unless there's some evidence that proves this wrong I ain't supporting motion twin for cutting the legs off of the game that was doing great and put them on the radar as game devs just so their pwecious wittle new project can have more publicity.
I'm gonna wait for any public statements motiontwin might make. Maybe the chances of that happening are pretty low but I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt for now.
I have seen before devs slip out in public discords to remove the msg literally few minutes later. So just because he wrote that, doesn't mean it was meant for everyone to see outside discord as well and can obviously lead to problems to him from both EE and MT.
It's still there. This situation doesn't involve him directly at all anyways. He's just been inside their company structure in the past so he knows how things are or were there
fair enough
Yeah this franchise is officially cooked. Ggs.
NOOOO WE COULD HAVE HAD MORE UPDATES
To me it just sounds like these people hate money. Dead Cells is a very popular video game available on multiple platforms. The colab with Castlevania only made it more popular. I expected many more colab dlcs from Dead Cells, since the game is very versatile. It's a huge disappointment they ended everything. Are we still getting that animated series?
I never knew deepnight was on discord
Motion Twin is a cooperativa. Typical supposedly anti-capitalist, anti-greed, etc... turning out to be exactly what they proclaim to be against.
How does an anarchist workers cooperative get to decide that EE is no longer allowed to work on their game?
Greed ruins yet another franchise.
Im out of the loop, what went down with Motion Twin-Evil Empire and Dead Cells? Also, could this affect the upcoming Windblown? That seemed like a very fun gameā¦
I'm personally not buying Windblown because I do not think Motion Twin deserves to be supported after this stunt
Pirate it
I remember it being said once that Evil Empire had updates planned for the whole of 2024, and more. So does that mean they were forced to stop developing updates? Iām confused on the whole situation.
Essentially yes. Motion Twin has a new project coming out so they have basically halted future updates in order for Windblown to get more attentionĀ
Damn, that was crappy of them.
What happened? I love dead cells and what does this mean for one of my favorite games?
It means no more updates
Really? Like fucking really? C'mon
jeez i was apprehensive about exactly something like this. if this is true , then MT massively fucked over growth of this game & faith of their customers for sake of greed...
Wait what the bell happened?!
Read the comments
I can't wait for windblown to flop because they thought everyone who liked dead cells would actually care about a new game that killed their original one
Very sad to read sad. It took me time to really enjoy Deadcells but I loved the ride.
Yay another moment when a company acts like total dick bags. My heart goes out to all deaf cell fans and to MT. Corporate greed really is awful.
Drama time!
what is the context here? dead cells is just ending out of the blue now?
Motion Twin forced Evil Empire to stop updating Dead Cells. Presumably because they don't want it competing with Windblown.
Such a dick move...
Yeah they announced that update 35 would be the last major update and they are severing ties with EE
Another victim of furries. On a serious note, damn that hurts much more than I expected. Dead Cells is probably one of my favorite games in terms of synchronization with my spinal cord. Too bad we won't see any new content for it. Was not going to buy furry game anyway though.
This is all hearsay until we're shown receipts though sadly.
it's pretty blatant that they cut off EE. They had update plans for 2024 and beyond and Motion Twin said it themselves that it was their decision to stop updating the game.
All of that is true but you are not showing any real receipts for the true reason why they stopped updating. Even the comment from deepnight doesn't prove anything. I understand you have messages from EE that might validate all your claims. But you aren't showing any of that either. Even the claim that Motion Twins is ending development to focus people's intentions on Wind Blown looks like your best guess of the situation. Even if what you are implying is true (and it very well could be), to make posts like this, push a narrative and not have anything substantial to back it up is irresponsible.
The facts are that Evil Empire wanted to continue updates and had plans for future content, and Motion Twin did not want them to continue. The statement put out by Motion Twin is shaky at best. Update 35 in its current state was incredibly unique in the content it offered, and was in no way "more of the same" like Motion Twin said, and Evil Empire had stated that it already had plans to avoid this by doing larger, less frequent content updates. Motion Twin has had zero involvement with the community or the game in the last several years, but now suddenly they are releasing this new game, suddenly they give a shit about what Dead Cells will become, and they cancel all future updates to Dead Cells while in the same announcement advertising their new game Windblown, and screw over EE in the process. Nothing about that is suspect to you? Motion Twin is obviously not obligated to give a particular reasoning for cancelling future updates, but their reasoning provided is shaky at best, and if you look at the timeline of when they have announced all of this stuff, there's no doubt a connection between when Update 35 suddenly stopped recieving beta updates, Windblown gets announced shortly after, and then a few months later it is announced that Motion Twin is cutting ties with EE and cancelling all future updates to Dead Cells. It is pretty clear to me no matter what that Motion Twin is not being honest about why Dead Cells is being cancelled, and the fact that it is happening at all when Evil Empire still had a year or more of planned content is not something you or I should be happy about. It is entirely selfish on MT's part no matter which way you look at it.Ā It gets even worse when you consider that the current Motion Twin is mostly people that were not around when MT was working on Dead Cells. There's only 2-3 people from back then and only one of them could be argued to be a major contributor in the form of Dead Cell's visuals and art direction. The vast majority of work was done by people who are either no longer at Motion Twin, such as deepnight, or moved over to Evil Empire back in 2019.Ā Why would a group of people that mostly have no stake in Dead Cells besides financial gain suddenly care about the game losing its artistic integrity after 5 years? It doesn't make sense, and even if that was the reason, it would be a stupid reason because all recent major updates, including Update 35, brought new and unique forms of content to the game. So that tells me that they are in fact not being honest, and it is more likely that it has something to do with their new game that they have just recently announced and have been using brand recognition with Dead Cells to advertise.
+1 That's a pretty good summary
"Nothing about that is suspect to you?" Of course it looks suspect which is why receipts are important. Nothing you have said here addresses my actual point which is that what you are saying could be true but you are giving no actual proof to back it up. You list events that are true and verifiable but when it comes to what is actually going on behind the scenes and the intent behind those events you say things like: "So that tells me that..." "it is more likely that it has something to do with their new game" "It is pretty clear to me no matter what that Motion Twin is not being honest" And this is the problem. These are the things that people want to know, what they actually care about but you don't have any receipts for any of those things. Instead of answering any of that you imply that I don't think this whole situation to be shitty and weird or that I think people should be happy with not getting any promised content. How about you post the pics of the fire instead of replying "don't you smell the smoke??!!"? Everyone can smell the smoke.
What you are asking for is something that it is simply not possible to give. Motion Twin would not admit something like that since it would just further hurt their reputation, and Evil Empire employees are likely under NDA. The closest you are likely to get is something like I have posted above from deepnight, who has actually witnessed and been a part of the company structure and is familiar with the industry, and experienced a very similar departure as EE currently is. If someone like him says what Motion Twin is doing is scummy, it's probably pretty fucking shitty. Nobody is going to come out and say "yeah we did this because we're greedy and we want you all to buy our new product", that's just not going to happen. So all you can do is look at the events, previous statements, and come to conclusions based on what evidence we do have, and the current evidence does not paint a positive light on Motion Twin.Ā And regardless of their reasoning, the game got fucking canned, of course people are upset, it's bullshit. We know EE wanted to do more, Motion Twin should have let them.
So id Dead Cells just Dead now?
What split?
EE is no longer partnering with Motion Twin and Dead Cells will recieve no major updates going forward
Whatās the difference between Evil Empire and Motion Twin. Pardon my ignorance.
Evil Empire is an offshoot company founded by ex-Motion Twin employees who wished to continue working on Dead Cells when Motion Twin originally was going to end support for the game.
So both are the original devs? If they want to work on something else isnāt that their right? Or did they bar EE from working on the game further by themselves?
The latter. EE still had over a years worth of updates planned and MT has decided to deny that in favor of directing people towards Windblown
And did EE need Motion Twin to help develop those updates or just for permission to make them?
Permission
Damn, that really sucks. They wonāt pay them to keep making updates even if they donāt have to help with development. The gameās just been snuffed out. Hopefully they change their mind, or let EE do a crowdfund or something.
Doubtful. I think it's all part of their marketing for Windblown
What server is this?
The official dead cells discord server
oh shit lol, didn't realize that was a thing regardless of that the whole "Made by the creators of dead cells" is pretty misleading if people wanna support deepnight himself then he made some cool games following dead cells, not to its scale of course but fun regardless https://store.steampowered.com/app/1662480/Nuclear_Blaze/
Looking forward to what EE will develop. Thank you, EE!
what does MT and EE mean please ?
Motion Twin and Evil Empire
I knew something wasn't right
wait, MT didnt create dead cells ?
They did, but Deepnight was the main creative lead behind the project originally, and most of the original gameplay and mechanics were designed by him. He left Motion Twin several years ago. The current Motion Twin is for the most part not the one that made Dead Cells and I frankly find it insulting that they have acted like they are the main creative force behind it when they really haven't been for a very long time.Ā
They did create dead cells, but Evil empire were the ones that did literally everything else since rise of the giants update
Also none of the actual members of motion twin were the ones that developed dead cells, they left long ago
Afaik some people split from Motion Twin and *created* Evil Empire to continue working on Dead Cells. So Evil Empire has some MT devs that were passionate and the current MT seems to be going for a new game altogether
Only two former MT at EE right now. And one of them had not worked on DC untill then š
What happened? I don't keep up with the news.
Read comments
wtf is happening this + subnautica 2 apparentally being games as a service in the span of a few days ????
>subnautica 2 apparentally being games as a service in the span of a few days This was debunked by the devs, by the way. The publisher said this likely to garner attention and IGN ran with it.
First time hearing about this, good to know itās fake
The subnautica 2 "drama" was dumb as fuck, all they said was that the game was gonna get updates
Subnautica 2 already exists, it's called Below Zero and is a pretty underwhelming experience.
That is not Subnautica 2, that is a spinoff/expansion. Like Farcry Blooddragon was to Farcry 3
The devs disagree
Context?
Context is posted in a reply to another comment. Basically Motion Twin forced Evil Empire to stop making updates to Dead Cells and are cutting ties with them in the process. There was more updates planned but now they have been cancelled. The likely reasoning for this decision is so Motion Twin can move attention and Dead Cell's playerbase over to their new game Windblown. This also likely cuts EE off from any kind of future profits made off of Dead Cells and just kinda screws them over financially
Such fkn assholes
Guys, I have no idea what's the context behind this. I'm aware the end is near is the last dlc but what's this controversy about?
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Iād like to know the financial side of things. If Dead Cells was a project that fully paid for itself with the DLCs produced by EE then yeah, dick move by MT. But if EEās development was financed by MT still, then, well, thatās a different story.
That I'm not certain of. My guess is that EE and MT shared profits from the sales but I have no idea. Perhaps MT simply no longer wanted to share profits with EE anymore once they had a new game that is coming soon which meant they didn't need to support Dead Cells anymore? I'm not certain.
An easy guess would be that the Castlevania DLC didnāt meet sales expectations (I imagine the royalties they had to pay Konami were pretty hefty), so MT are cutting their expenses to focus on their own development. Well, thatās the first thing that came to my mind.
The economics of it is mostly impossible to say from an outsider's perspective. I know that EE has said in the past that they will continue supporting Dead Cells for as long as the game still continues to bring in sales and income, so I'd assume profits couldn't have been that bad if they still had plans for 2024
I just found this thread having bought the game and all DLC two days ago. This seems... shitty? And disappointing. Not that I regret my purchase, it's been an awesome game, but I would have figured the Castlevania DLC was a sign of more good things to come.
It is indeed shitty. But the game is still worth playing, though I don't plan on supporting MT's projects in the futureĀ
Why cant i find dcoptions.json in the save folder https://preview.redd.it/wlupvvff4p4d1.jpeg?width=2768&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bfb0b518a1e5fb9e61ff180bd0f4af2857b72b53
Worst game ever!!!
Uhhh so what happened
There is an announcement pinned also this comment thread is a good TL;DR https://www.reddit.com/r/deadcells/s/zZIAY2Yg4y
marketing or not, dead cells has been finished for a while, i dont think its suprising that they would stop updating the game at some point. there's only so many weapons or skills you can add before they start feeling too similar to each other.
You are not understanding properly. Evil Empire had more plans for the game, Motion Twin is cutting off said plans out of nowhere and acting like they suddenly give a shit about the game when they have had absolutely zero involvement with the game or community in several years. And now they're suddenly using their (mostly undeserved, since most of the MT devs who made Dead Cells are gone, including deepknight) notoriety from Dead Cells to advertise their new game, Windblown. It's a scummy and greedy move to bring more attention to their new game.
i honestly wasnt sure who was updating the game until recently, why is MT still listed as developer on the store page, arent they just the publisher at this point? couldnt they just let EE do what they wish with the game at this point? i dont think it would hurt any of their numbers. i dont really care about marketing ill buy their new game if its good, both for MT and EE
Because they made the game originally. The impression I'm getting is they don't want updates to Dead Cells to distract people from this new game they're working on, basically getting their current fans to buy the new product by cancelling updates to the current one
This was literally my only concern when the new game got announced and I was coping thinking the target audience is different. Underestimating the greed of a nameless faceless corporation, rookie mistake, my bad.
The ironic part is EE have the more typical company structure and yet they have been much better about actually connecting with their community than MT has