Good news Dead Cells fans. The rogue-lite Metroidvania platformer is getting an impressive update with beta version 1.1 coming to Steam today. The patch offers players the ability to create custom game modes which give players control of loadouts, items, and weapons. New item buffs, challenge rewards, and other enhancements are coming to the core game as well. This patch has been in the works sometime now since its announcement, and things are looking good.

The custom game mode appears to give you a menu of options before starting where you can select your starting loadout. You can also modify gold reserves, max potion levels, and a whole list of miscellaneous modifications. The point of this is to give players the freedom to come up with their ideal playthroughs for added challenge and fun. The patch reads:

Basically, this mode gives you the keys to the kingdom of Dead Cells. You can pretty much configure your run how you want it to be. For instance, we think not letting the player choose it starting gear or remove items from the loot table forces people to try new strategies and to adapt to the random part of roguelites.

Players can also expect some slight buffs to gear as well as the Homunculus skill and Mutations. The point of the changes is to make these features more useful to players. On top of that bosses will no longer drop legendary equipment. Instead, they will drop a weapon and an active skill. To get legendary items, players will get an opportunity through mobs or through the new Legendary Altars. The Legendary Altars are basically challenges where players must eliminate enemies in a specific area to earn a legendary weapon

Other key features such as recycling have been reworked and scaled to keep from breaking the in-game economy. And probably the last major change in the game is the addition of challenges being visible in-game for players to see and unlock as they progress.

This patch seems wealthy with content for players to dig back in and enjoy one of the better Metroidvania games of this year. You can read up on our review for the game if you're interested in picking up another rouge-lite game during the holidays. Dead Cells is available now for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One. If you haven't picked up the game yet, you really should -- the game won Best Metroidvania Game of 2018 in DualShockers Game of the Year Awards.