Dead Cells' Panchaku update lets you pet your pets and wield a dual frying pan

Dead Cells, the ever-expanding rogue-like action-platformer from developers Motion Twin and subsidiary Evil Empire, continues to swell, this time with the newly released Enter the Panchaku update, which introduces pet petting, a formidable dual frying pan weapon, and more.

The ability to pet your pets in a rogue-like action-platformer mightn’t be at the top of your own personal list of exciting additions, but – as revealed in Evil Empire’s extremely extensive release notes – the feature is now in, giving players the ability to show their companions some love between biomes. And why wouldn’t you want to do that, you monster?

Elsewhere, the free Panchaku update introduces the new Panchaku weapon, which keen-eyed players might recognise as originating in the animated trailer for Dead Cells’ Bad Seed expansion. It’s described as “two frying pans tied together with a piece of string, which crits on enemies facing you and has a slick combo with hits behind and all around you”. It’ll also reflect bombs and projectiles mid-combo.

Also making the transition from the Bad Seed trailer (and indeed all Dead Cells’ subsequent expansion trailers) is its pink flame-headed star, who will be playable via the new Bobby skin.

Beyond that, the update brings a host of mechanical changes, including an extensive rework of items. “It’s been a while since our last major rebalance of weapons,” explains Evil Empire. “Since then we’ve had new items and mutations from the Everyone is Here and the Break the Bank updates, plus The Queen and the Sea DLC, so there’s a few imbalances here and there.”

In total, the Enter the Panchaku update will rebalance 29 weapons, skills, and mutations – a move the developer says it’s making to “keep the variety element strong – a good roguelite should offer you difficult choices.”

Today’s update also features an overhaul for legendary items (the gold variants you’ll find during play), intended to make them more intuitive and more interesting. “The only thing that legendaries gave you was more damage, that was it,” explains Evil Empire. “More damage is always good, but we wanted to make it better!”

Its solution is to throw out the existing legendary system and introduce new affixes to gold items – essentially, “tasty extra powers you get on items, like 60% damage to a bleeding enemy”.

There’s a lot more to the update – including some crossover content with fellow rogue-like Soul Knight – and you’ll find the full details in today’s blog post and accompanying developer VLOG.

And this is far from the end of updates for Dead Cells, of course. Last month, Evil Empire said it now considers the game to be in its “mid-life”, revealing a new roadmap of content extending into 2023, which it says will be the “biggest year since the 1.0 launch”.