What a killer year for roguelikes: Former Dead Cells developers now compete against each other with 3 great-looking action games

Let’s put aside Hades 2 as the current obvious giant of the roguelike world and consider the abundance of riches pouring out of France in 2024. Right now we have not one, not two, but three completely different but similar in spirit action roguelikes from the people who created, developed or expanded on Dead Cells, one of the most acclaimed action games of the last seven years.

First up was the announcement of Dead Cells developer studio Motion Twin’s next game, Windblown. It’s not out yet, but I got an hour-long look at it, which was extremely promising. Then came The Rogue Prince of Persia from Evil Empire, the studio that has spent several years maintaining and producing high-quality DLC for Dead Cells. It’s currently in Early Access, and we liked what played of it quite a bit. Finally, during a Devolver Direct presentation today, former Dead Cells lead designer Sébastien Benard revealed Tenjutsu, a beat ’em up with big, crisp pixel art that reminds me of Celeste mixed with Hotline Miami.

What a treat to have developers so obviously good at making action games, all of which are different evolutions of their previous project. With Windblown, Motion Twin goes 3D and focuses on co-op play; Evil Empire leans towards platforming with the acrobatic Prince; and Benard’s studio Deepknight Games is clearly intent on conveying the impact (and stopping) of 2D punches in tight spaces.

I say that these three games compete with each other, but I don’t mean that in a “there can only be one winner” sense. Each of these games is clearly aiming for something different in the action roguelike space. People who loved Dead Cells may like all three games, but one of them will probably appeal to them the most.

I expect it to be Windblown, as I almost always prefer to play co-op with a friend or two when I can. But the 3D perspective might make someone else reject this game out of hand, while the platforming or brawler gameplay of Rogue Prince of Persia or Tenjutsu might be right up their alley.

There’s no date yet for Tenjutsu, while Windblown is coming out sometime later in 2024; The Rogue Prince of Persia will likely be in Early Access until mid-2025. Once they’re all out, it’ll be fun to analyze them all in more detail to see where they followed up on ideas from Dead Cells and where they went in completely different directions.

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