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The stylish roguelike / Metroidvania / Souls-like hybrid Dead Cells should be the perfect game for the Nintendo Switch. The slick visuals and flashy combat look great on the TV, while the procedurally-generated levels and fast-paced nature of the game (each attempt you make to beat it is more likely to take minutes than hours) make for a great on-the-go experience. Unfortunately, some players have reported inconsistent framerates on the platform, inspiring developer Motion Twin to address the issue on Reddit.
"We playtested Dead Cells on the Nintendo Switch and we continue to play it for fun, on the tram, at certain family gatherings and just for the hell of it during our lunch breaks," the studio writes. "We are aware of the frame rate drops in some areas of the game. However we didn’t feel like it was getting in the way of us having a good time with Dead Cells, and we had to make a choice between; significantly delaying the launch of the Switch version of the game until after the release on the other platforms, or getting it out to fans at the same time as everyone else. The former seemed more damaging for Switch owners."
"That said, we’ve just come from 15 months of Early Access, with the development style and culture that goes with it. We've learned that just because we’re the developers, doesn’t mean we’re always right about our own game. So now we’ll put what we learned into practice, listen to your feedback and get to work fixing the problem right away. We’ve allocated all available resources to the issue (remember we’re a small team) and improving the performance on Switch it our main priority as of now."
Unfortunately, even making framerate optimization the top priority won't result in a quick fix. Considering the team's size (seven staff members, only about half of which are labeled "dev" on the company website) and the fact that any updates made for console have to be certified, the absolute soonest a fix will come is November. And according to Motion Twin, that's "if the god of game dev comes down from the clouds and blesses our guys right now." In other words, you'll have to be patient.
If you don't think you can wait that long, Dead Cells is also available on PC, Xbox One, and PS4.
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