Video Games

Evil Empire hands Dead Cells reins back to Motion Twin, pursues new projects

Studio provided updates and DLC for the roguelike

Marco Wutz

Evil Empire hands Dead Cells reins back to Motion Twin, pursues new projects
Evil Empire hands Dead Cells reins back to Motion Twin, pursues new projects /

Dead Cells, which was released in 2018, is nearing the end of its active development lifecycle. Developer Motion Twin announced that it would try and push out Update 34 for the title’s mobile version later this year and then follow this up with the final Update 35 for PC and consoles. It’s been quiet around these updates for a while and Motion Twin shared the reason for that today: Evil Empire, which has been helping Motion Twin with Dead Cells updates and DLC over the previous five years, has handed the reins back to the original developer.

“Update 35 for Dead Cells marks the end of our creative journey on the game. After an incredible 5-year collaboration in bringing additional content to Dead Cells' live-ops, Evil Empire will be pursuing new adventures and we can't wait to see what they come up with next,” Motion Twin stated. It added that this decision had been made “after much reflection” and in order to avoid falling into the trap of continuing to do more of the same all the time.

Evil Empire was responsible for the successful Return to Castlevania DLC for Dead Cells / Motion Twin

“This change explains the recent quiet period on updates, as concluding such a partnership required careful planning to ensure a smooth process for everyone, including the community. As always, we will of course continue to find solutions to make sure that all quality of life issues and bugs are properly fixed across all platforms to provide a worthy experience to all of you,” the post went on.

Evil Empire’s post said: “After nearly 5 years of service, 4 DLCs, 18 updates, some epic crossovers and a mobile release with Playdigious, Evil Empire will no longer be working on Dead Cells. We are immensely proud of the work we have put into the game, we loved every minute and are very thankful to Motion Twin for trusting us and letting us play with their baby for so long.”

Having completed its work on Dead Cells, the studio will be working on “something shiny and new, or maybe more than one thing,” it wrote.

Motion Twins already announced its upcoming project, Windblown, at The Game Awards 2023.

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Marco Wutz
MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg

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