Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
I’m a huge video game junkie, spending nearly 40 years of my life grinding on the Sega Master System and the Atari 5200 as a child before moving up and around the ranks of every system you can think of through to modern-day consoles like the Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and PS5.
I love video games, but I usually don’t like video games ported into other formats. Movies based on video games? Usually, no thanks. TV shows based on video games? This is a growing category, and one that is getting better (Fallout and The Last of Us were worth it), but it still has a tough legacy to overcome. Board games based on video games? My experiences with board game adaptations of video games have been almost universally atrocious.
Frostpunk: The Board Game? My group thought it was terrible. Fallout: The Board Game? No…just, no. This War of Mine: The Board Game? I’m in the minority on this, but by the time I found myself going through the 18th different deck of cards to find out if my character’s fate was sealed or not, I wanted to chuck This War of Mine out the window. I did a demo of Call of Duty: The Board Game last year and it was a massive disappointment. I wanted to try Stardew Valley: The Board Game, until a raft of negative reviews told me I should skip it.
Sometimes things do work out. I remember enjoying Bloodborne: The Card Game, for example, and I’m told that Slay the Spire: The Board Game is pretty good. Earlier this year, I had the chance to try the very strong The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era, based on the Elder Scrolls Online gaming world. While that one was pretty good, the game’s systems are partially based on Chip Theory’s previous tabletop game Too Many Bones, so success was baked into the design.
I picked up a review copy of Dead Cells: The Rogue-Lite Board Game (2024, Scorpion Masqué) at SPIEL 2024. I really enjoy the Dead Cells video game, and as a “rogue-lite” fan, I think the Dead Cells formula gives players just the right amount of drip to keep coming back again and again to get murdered off by the game’s hefty difficulty level. (The difference between a “roguelike” and a “rogue-lite” is that a roguelike usually has turn-based combat rounds, whereas a rogue-lite is often an action game, such as The Binding of Isaac, Spelunky, and Enter the Gungeon.)
As evidenced by both my experience and the experience of others in my tabletop gaming circles, it seems like it is really hard to make a great video game into a great board game. And a cooperative skirmish combat game didn’t seem like anything else in the Scorpion Masqué catalog. Heck, Sky Team was the big Scorpion Masqué title from last year, and I’m not sure that game could be more different than Dead Cells. These are the same people who gave us Turing Machine, Decrypto, and the Flashback series…not a combat game amongst them.
Friends, I am here to report that I have never been so wrong about a property, a publisher, or an adaptation attempt. Dead Cells: The Rogue-Lite Board Game is one of the ten best tabletop games of the year.
Grind, Baby
Dead Cells: The Rogue-Lite Board Game is a 1-4 player cooperative deck-building combat game that plays in anywhere from 20-60 minutes per “run.” For those new to rogue-lite games: a “run” is simply the term for a play session that ends either with your death or your success defeating a boss. Death might come early, especially in the first run or two of this board game, as players move their party through a series of maps known as “Biomes” in search of trouble and treasure.
In both the video game and the board game, there is essentially no narrative in Dead Cells, which works to its advantage in the tabletop adaptation. Players are one of four slick-looking “Beheaded” characters, and each character essentially wakes up in the game’s world with a goal of moving through a horde of enemies, hacking and slashing their way to the next map. In between, merchants offer new weapons and items, healers can be paid for valuable services, and treasure chests provide gold teeth or the cells of dead enemies that can be spent to make future runs a little easier.
Dead Cells: The Rogue-Lite Board Game is designed by a team of French tabletop design all-stars: Corentin Lebrat (Faraway, winner of the 2024 As D’or at the Festival International des Jeux), Ludovic Maublanc (Cyclades), Theo Rivière (Sea Salt & Paper) and Antoine Bauza (7 Wonders and 7 Wonders Duel). This mix of design talent alone should be enough evidence for you to run out and buy this game right now.
Now that I have played Dead Cells 11 times–
JUSTIN, WHAT? YOU USUALLY DO THREE, MAYBE FOUR REVIEW PLAYS BEFORE WRITING A REVIEW. ELEVEN TIMES? WHAT IS wrong WITH YOU?
This is fair. You could skip to the end of this review right now and just look at the score, or note the fact that I have already told you this is one of the ten best games of the year, but I can’t stop playing this game. Just give me a minute to tell you why!
Anyway, now that I have played Dead Cells 11 times (one solo run, three runs with two players, five runs with three players, and two runs at four players), the game really did need four designers to help build up the game’s incredible depth, maps, play systems, and the sheer number of items in the box.
Dead Cells is 95% combat game and 5% clean-up phase, the latter taking place during the “Interbiome” phase between maps. The combat engine didn’t look like much during my first pass of the rulebook, but during my first two-player game with my eight-year-old son, we were shocked by how much fun we were having setting up each combat scenario.
Combat is fantastic. A combat board represents the party, along with four empty spaces for enemies drawn from a deck aligned with the map players are currently battling through. The spaces are very straightforward: one space for an enemy is behind the party, with the other three in front of the party. This way, players may be attacked by one enemy before it gets to take its actions. Then up to three more baddies could show up, including a mix of normal and “elite” characters, during encounters that always last three rounds.
Each player has a hand of at least six combat cards. The cards have a single action that will trigger in each of the game’s three rounds: a mix of either attack, healing, skills, block/defense, or a combat status assignment such as fire, freeze, etc. Sometimes, there are multiple actions on a card in a particular round, and sometimes, there are no actions in a specific round, meaning a player might be worthless for an action or maybe even two.
Working with your teammates, you’ve got to figure out how to navigate each encounter. Even 11 runs in, I’m still seeing so many new and interesting ways to take on enemies. Sometimes, you want to kill off enemies before they can do any damage. In other cases, we found ourselves not bothering to kill certain enemies at all. During my first 2-3 runs, there were times where we were debating the value of certain baddies: how do we take just enough damage to survive and make it to the Interbiome?
A run ends when any member of the party dies by reaching their hit point (HP) limit.
Each player has a mat that uses an upgrade system to track powers—earn a scroll to move up a track, with each move unlocking a power for that player. One aspect of the combat that I didn’t love during the first run: players don’t have even basic weapons or items during setup, which differs from the video game. Even after five runs, we hadn’t unlocked the ability to carry a second item, which again is something that is standard in the video game. (The moment when we unlocked the second item slot was one of the funniest “high five” moments my kids and I had this year. It’s like we went from only having one leg to suddenly having two, the way we were maniacally laughing about our situation.)
Dead Cells comes in a big box with a couple hundred cards, most of which are locked when you begin play. The way new goodies unlock has quickly become my favorite legacy/campaign game unlock systems of all time. I’m also happy to report that I haven’t seen even close to all the stuff in the box after 11 runs. For a player who only wants to play Dead Cells for a few months, Scorpion Masqué has you covered.
Tactics, Survival, Brutality
For fans of the video game, Dead Cells: The Rogue-Lite Board Game has been a dream come true. The designers worked with video game developer Motion Twin (the design shop behind the original video game) to build something that is one of the purest definitions of fan service I can remember.
The designers got the enemies right. The flying enemies from the video games often start as far away from the party as possible, or sometimes right under the party’s collective nose, and some detonate in a way that can kill the entire party in a flash. The Shieldbearer is really tough to take out if it gets a head of steam and uses its shield to bash members of the party. The weapons are just right. The Concierge is just as tough in this game as it is in the video game—and its attacks feel just right as a representation of what The Concierge can do in the video game. The levels look perfect, represented as small boards that require the party to stroll around in a series of divergent paths to take on encounters.
But nothing is better than the unlock system. When a run is over, players spend the cells they picked up during that run to spend on new goodies. Those cells are mainly spent in three different card categories: Tactics, Survival, and Brutality, aligned with the three main skill areas of the video game. (There’s also a fourth deck of cards, the Abandoned Well, where spare change in the form of cells can be spent. So far, that has mostly been a miss, with cute story cards that clearly hint at something good located at the very end of that progression deck. I’ll check back with the community after I unlock those goodies.)
Sometimes, you will get new cards that make a player’s starting hand of combat cards better thanks to new or upgraded actions. These new cards can be added to one player’s deck or kept available for any player to use during future runs. There are Feats that can be earned, to give players a reason to go back to older Biomes.
There are permanent upgrades that can be slotted into the Mutation board, including ways to upgrade the party when a new game begins, so that players might start a game with scrolls or weapons to make the fight a little easier. There are Runes that can be added that make certain parts of a Biome accessible or even visible when players enter.
That unlock system is deep, and I was surprised at how well the game introduced different benefits that seemed minor at first, but then became situationally massive. Some weapons trigger only in certain rounds of a combat, such as the Beginner’s Bow in round one. I found myself playing combat cards that had no action in round one so that I could always use the Beginner’s Bow to hit a bad guy. Then I could use the actions listed in rounds two and three and be useful to the team in each of the combat’s three-round structure.
That may seem minor, but then you combine these with the powers on each player’s mat, and you come up with some juicy combos. Of the four characters, my family has found that The Flayed is a must—that character is best at providing shields to other players, and even though it has a health stat that is lower than the other Beheaded, the shields more than make up for this. (And Golden Shields? Oh my goodness. Having shields that can block attacks or “states” like Frozen or Bleed is huge as players try the harder maps.)
I love the combat systems. I love the way maps are set up with a Checks system that is crazy simple and diceless—flip the top card of a draw deck, and if you have a symbol on one of your combat cards, you pass or fail.
I love the production—everything looks great, the storage solution is a winner, the rules are clear, and the player aid (the backside of each player’s power description card) details every icon in the game, so I rarely needed to consult the full rulebook during play. The unlock/progression system is great, and while I have no idea why the Mutation board has half-sleeve spaces to keep cards in place, I absolutely love that it was built that way. Getting new maps set up and ready to go is a breeze, and the focus on combat means that there’s almost never any downtime.
Ahh, wait a minute. At two or three players—the solo does the job, but I preferred my plays with human beings—Dead Cells is an A++. At four players, some things change, and those changes are not ideal.
Don’t Play This Game with Four Players
Dead Cells: The Rogue-Lite Board Game was clearly built as a three-player game. I’m sure no one would confirm this for me on the publisher side, but it’s just a hunch.
Combat only ever allows the party of players to use three of their combat cards—exactly one per player at three players—in a combat engagement. When playing solo or at two players, the holder of the crown (the first player token) plays two cards, with a bot standing in as a second player (Serenade) or the second human player getting to play one card. At four players, not only are you capped at three cards…one player has to pass and sit out that combat.
Yes. In a party-based skirmish game, one of the players in a four-player game doesn’t get to play. They have a little something to do—flip the top card of their personal draw deck, and if there’s a symbol on the card that boosts a track, they get a free track bump. But they still have to sit out the round.
“It’s weird that we have to rotate who passes,” one player said during our first four-player run. “Also, do we pass in order?”
No. The crown holder (a role that passes naturally based on game elements that force it to move in a clockwise fashion) is always forced to participate in the combat. But the other three players then have to decide who should sit out.
Naturally, that’s going to be a fight in most cases. In a short game, you generally want to play, not watch, right? Everyone thinks they have the best cards or the key to beating the enemies currently on the board. Everyone thinks their powers are the most situationally perfect ones for a given scenario. And, everyone wants to get the loot that is laying on the ground after a combat wraps up…and if you pass, you aren’t eligible to grab that Heavy Crossbow off the floor after a recent combat. (Not saying that this happened to me. OK, I am saying that this happened to me!)
Once, we were thankful that the rules were set up this way—one of our party members was down to his final hit point. Yeah, buddy, you need to sit this one out until someone gets a heal action on one of their cards. You might have to sit out twice if we can’t find a potion, pal. OK, fine.
But in general, four-player Dead Cells is actually kind of weird. The game setup at four players requires two players to begin the game with one damage each. For perspective, the base health stat kills a player who takes a third damage token. So, two players are 33% dead when the game begins, and early on, you are almost certainly a goner if you are starting out with no items and no perks listed on the Mutation board.
Some game elements went the other way—one of the players in our four-player runs thought Dead Cells was easier at the maximum player count, because it was so hard to focus firepower on a dying Beheaded. Because of the game’s damage distribution system, players can freely assign damage to any player they would like unless the damage is assigned specifically to the player with the crown or the player with the lowest amount of health.
That meant we used the required pass rules to always sit the player who had the lowest amount of health. That one player had to sit out a combat, but at least he/she/they stayed alive…and that got us very deep into a boss battle on our first play, a game we would have definitely lost were it not for these rules.
The Best Combat Game of the Year***
***As long as you are NOT playing with four players, Dead Cells: The Rogue-Lite Board Game is the best combat game of the year.
I love that so many of the game’s fights have offered thought-provoking ways to solve the riddle, especially as the game has gotten harder. Dead Cells: The Rogue-Lite Board Game has an incredible progression system. The combat is fun, and working with friends or my family to come up with solutions is a blast. Adding in items and powers is very much a “plug and play” operation—anyone who can read can pick up these systems quickly, so I’ve shown Dead Cells to a variety of players and all of them grabbed on within minutes.
My son, in particular, might love Dead Cells: The Rogue-Lite Board Game more than anyone. He has taken part in eight of the 11 runs, and during the four-player runs I did with the review crew, he insisted on managing the game’s resources—handing out shields where appropriate, or setting up the next map as we were exiting an Interbiome phase. He wants to talk about the game constantly, so we are regularly talking shop—the best way to take out bad guys, the problems with the worms in the Stilt Village, what combat cards he wants to have in his deck for the next run.
He’s obsessed with it. And he had no problems picking up the systems, so for parents who are wondering if the Teen rating for the video game means that kids shouldn’t try the board game, I’m here to assure you that this is a big win. Both my eight-year-old and my 10-year-old love this game, which means I love getting the chance to play a legacy game with a captive audience.
I can’t remember a year where I played so many wargame and tactical skirmish/combat games as strong as the 2024 slate. Fateforge: Chronicles of Kaan, Andromeda’s Edge, Bestiary of Sigillum, The Warp, Arcs, the Thunder Road: Vendetta expansion Carnival of Chaos, The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era…I’m sure I’m forgetting some, there were so many good ones. But Dead Cells: The Rogue-Lite Board Game has the edge. With my kids lurking outside my office right now, I know where my bread is buttered!
Dead Cells: The Rogue-Lite Board Game details
- Designer: Antoine Bauza, Corentin Lebrat, Ludovic Maublanc, Théo Rivière
- Artists: Laure de Chateaubourg, Paul Vérité, Robin Lagofun, Xavier Gueniffey Durin
- Publishers: Le Scorpion Masqué, Scorpion Masqué
- Release Date: 2024
- Player count : 1 - 4
- Age range : 14+
- Time range : 45 minutes
- Mechanism(s): Cooperative Game, Deck, Bag, and Pool Building, Solo / Solitaire Game, Variable Player Powers
- BGG Geek Rating: 8.27553 - converted to Meeple Mountain scale: 4.0.
- More articles about Dead Cells: The Rogue-Lite Board Game.
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