Now one full year into the Steam early access development of co-op action roguelike Windblown, Dead Cells creator Motion Twin says the work is still going great and the team is already pondering DLC and updates that could follow the 2026 1.0 release.
"The plan was to make a bigger game than Dead Cells," says designer Thomas Vasseur. "It's a dream plan. And we really wanted to make a new IP, to have maybe a different kind of experience, even if it's also a roguelite. And maybe it was very hard on Dead Cells to have some players that do not know roguelites. We had a lot of players who had difficulties in this kind of genre, and with Windblown, this is really something we wanted to do, a game which is easier to come into."
In pursuit of that dream plan, Motion Twin estimated in Windblown's early access blurb that it would take at least a year to come together. A year later, designer Yannick Berthier reckons they were pretty close. "We are still in this phase where we add stuff because we want to add stuff and add stuff and add stuff," he says. "I know that we soon will enter the phase of sacrifices."
"Yes, the decision making," Vasseur chimes in ominously. "What do you want the most for the 1.0? There's a lot of discussion, because we want to do a lot of things, but we cannot."
"Yeah, but apart from that, in the production planning, we are on rails compared to what we were thinking, we are not late on stuff," Berthier continues. "We are still having quite a lot of fun. Maybe I was not expecting to redo all of the Alter Attack system, for example, which is one of the core combat systems of the game. But thanks to the players, they sent some feedback, and we were like, oh, maybe there's something to do. It wasn't planned, but the game would be better if we do it. So then we do it."
As Team Cherry demonstrated with Hollow Knight: Silksong, one hard part with getting sucked into a fun development cycle can be knowing when to call it good. For Windblown, Motion Twin has to decide when it's ready for 1.0. On that front, Vasseur reckons one sign might be "the work we are doing right now, about the story."
"The story defines how many biomes, bosses, [and] encounters you need to succeed in the buildup of the end of the game," he says. "So I would say the story helps, but the truth is that we feel when the game is ready. On Dead Cells, we did not plan the 1.0. We just need time to get things done. And now, after one year of early access, we know how long it takes to make a new biome, a new boss, etc. So now it's easy to know, OK, next year is the year to launch the 1.0."
Looking ahead, Berthier says it would be great to continue working on Windblown far beyond its 1.0 launch, but the team is focusing on leaving early access in the right way. Motion Twin also has to prepare for planned console releases well ahead of time.
"Regarding the updates and maybe future DLCs, yeah, if the game really works, we would love that," Berthier says. "We already have ideas. But right now we want to be sure that the 1.0 is a really, really good game on its own. And it's not like people on day one, they will not feel like it's lacking a part or it's a reduced version of what it should be. It should be really great, finished, polished, and really, I would say, honest to the player, so they know that what they got is something great. And then we'll see if we put more content.
"The problem is that if you try to think too much into the future, everything is really theoretical," he continues. "I would prefer to work on something more concrete. Right now, this is what we are doing. What's the content for 1.0 and why this ending is awesome. Why the player will get some emotions. Why would they keep playing? Is the game still interesting? Story-wise, emotionally, and logically, or even in game feel after one, two, three, four hours, 20 hours of gameplay, and so on.
"That, I think, for now is our main focus, and it should be our main focus because it's the core of the game. And then, if that is good, then we have an open bar to do more stuff, and maybe one day we'll do another game. We'll see. We've been talking about that [for] a lot of years, but Windblown deserves a lot of love for a really long time."
