Dead Cells lead developer Sébastien Benard, who also has credits on well-received titles like The Rogue Prince of Persia and the recent Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse, is coming out with a new game called Tenjutsu. Rather than the cartoonish fantasy of Dead Cells, Tenjustu seems to be adopting a slick urban aesthetic, reminiscent of the likes of Hotline Miami and The Hong Kong Massacre in its style and vibe.
At the same time, you can definitely see some of Dead Cells‘ DNA in Tenjutsu. The 2D beat-em-up is, surprise-surprise, a roguelike, adopting the same run-based structure as Benard’s previous work. Tenjutsu also showcases the same vibrant, colorful pixel-art visual philosophy that Dead Cells follows, combining explosive visual effects with cleverly designed 3D sprites made to appear 2D. The result is an incredibly smooth and striking aesthetic package, one that stands out against a sea of other “retro-inspired” titles. Tenjustu‘s gameplay is a little bit harder to judge at-a-glance, but if it’s anything like Dead Cells‘, then audiences could be in for a treat indeed.
Dead Cells’ Quality Is Enough to Make Tenjutsu an Appealing Prospect
The widely discussed phenomenon of roguelike fatigue isn’t lost on me. As someone who loves all game genres, and who has a generally high tolerance for roguelikes (two of my all-time favorite games are Slay the Spire and Hades), even I can admit that the template has gotten a bit stale in recent years. It’s an oversaturated space, to be sure, but it’s also one rife with potential, even today, and Tenjutsu is just the kind of game to realize it.
It can be easy to overlook Dead Cells in light of such genre saturation, but it should be noted that it actually preceded the peak of this trend, being released in 2018, before the likes of Hades took the world by storm. In many ways, Dead Cells is still leagues ahead of most action-oriented roguelikes, with terrific, crunchy combat, satisfying in-run and meta progression systems, and a world and atmosphere you can sink your teeth into. With years of ongoing support and DLCs, Dead Cells is an extremely robust, compelling, cost-effective roguelike with a lot of charm.
As someone who loves all genres of games, and who has a generally high tolerance for roguelikes… even I can admit that the template has gotten a bit stale in recent years.
Dead Cells is also one of the best games to play on a handheld, in my opinion. The simplicity of its controls, expressiveness of its art and animation, and natural synergy with short play sessions makes it one of the best titles to play on Switch or a handheld PC like the Steam Deck. I’m clearly not the only one who thinks so, considering that Dead Cells was one of the best-selling games on the original Nintendo Switch, sitting alongside the likes of Hollow Knight, Celeste, and Stardew Valley, and is majorly responsible for the power of the indie space on Nintendo’s handheld.
Thankfully, Benard is continuing this relationship with Tenjutsu, which is slated to release on Nintendo Switch 2 in addition to PC sometime in 2027. Hopefully, the combination of Benard’s development experience and the Switch 2’s improved hardware will make Tenjustu an even better handheld game than Dead Cells.
With Any Luck, Tenjutsu Will Surpass Even Dead Cells
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Much like Dead Cells, Tenjutsu features procedurally generated environments peppered with enemies and upgrades, with runs separated by downtime in a hub zone. In Tenjutsu’s case, this hub is the home of protagonist Ten, an apartment nestled in Kuroboro City, an obvious analog to neon-soaked visions of urban Japan. It’s within this hub that much of Tenjutsu‘s narrative will unfold, and this is perhaps what I’m most interested in seeing in the final product.
Narratively, Tenjutsu is remarkably different from Dead Cells, following Ten as she fights her way through Yakuza bosses who see her as a threat to their entrenched power, now that she’s out of prison. This sounds like a much more personal and gritty tale relative to Dead Cells, which is far more “video-gamey” in its storytelling approach. On the one hand, Dead Cells has some interesting dark fantasy concepts, but it’s also very concerned with lore to the detriment of emotional heft. Its “Malaise” plague premise is also not the most original.
My hope is that Tenjutsu can offer a more compelling plot than Dead Cells, with more interesting characters and better-orchestrated moments, without losing the latter’s fluid combat and movement. Just looking at Tenjustu‘s gameplay is enough to pique my interest, so I have my fingers crossed that it plays as good as it looks.
