In celebration of Half-Life: Alyx's launch, developers Evil Empire and Motion Twin dropped a new Dead Cells PC update that includes some direct references to Valve's first-person shooter. We've compiled the patch notes below.

　　Half-Life: Alyx seems like the bomb!!! So... In a shameless attempt to convince Lord Gaben of Valve to send us an Index kit (each, of course) we built this: https://t.co/26i6C0RT7W #Steam #indiedev #deadcells #HalfLifeAlyx #briberyWorksRight #jokes #notReally pic.twitter.com/K3UxBPFeLI

　　— Motion Twin (@motiontwin) March 25, 2020

　　The update, which is the 18th in Dead Cells' life cycle, adds a ton of new content. Alongside Half-Life items such as Freeman's crowbar and a series-inspired skin, the game gets extra goodies like a portable door to give you back protection, six brand-new enemies, more affixes on many of the game's skills, and more.

　　Unfortunately, Dead Cells' latest update is only available on Steam. The studios warn that, since the patch is in alpha for the moment, it may be broken, and it's best to create save backups while preparing to install it. You can find instructions on how to download the new Dead Cells alpha update below:

　　Go to your Steam game library.Right-click on Dead Cells and click "Properties."Select the tab "Betas."In the first dropdown box select "Alpha - Not for the faint-hearted."Click "Close" and wait for the upload to finish downloading.Start playing.In addition to the assortment of content, the new Dead Cells patch also makes some quality of life adjustments to stabilize the experience. These include changes to the health and damage of Cavern enemies, interconnecting rooms in The Bad Seed DLC to make traversal less cumbersome, bug fixes, and more.

Full Dead Cells 18th Alpha Update Patch Notes

　　New affixes: We added 11 new affixes on active skills, aimed primarily at growing the pool of affixes available for some items that didn't have enough.8 new normal affixes: Ice, fire, bleed or poison on nearby floors or enemies when the effect of the used active ends.A grenade, a volley of arrows, or fire spreads when a deployable trap is destroyed.Get all your arrows back when using a skill.3 new starred affixes: Oil and fire spread around when a deployable trap is destroyed.Push enemies around you when the effect of the used active ends.Extended duration for powers like Wings of the Crow or Smokebomb.6 New Mobs: Six brand new enemies. 3 are biome specific, 3 are dispatched through various levels at differents Boss Cells. At the time being, and until the live release, we prefer letting you unveil their exact locations and types.2 New items: Crowbar (part of the 17.3 'Half-Life' pack patch). Fast brutality weapons that crits after breaking a door or a breakable prop.Portable Door: Allow you to bring a door with you, covering your back while you take care of the mobs in front of you and allowing for an elegant stun effect when you decide to turn around.Half-life diet: Completing the Freeman' role play pack with medpacks for true immersion.The Bad Seed New lore rooms and secrets for the Arboretum and the Morass.The Bad Seed Balanced bestiary: We took the opportunity of adding new mobs to re-balance the bestiary of the levels in questions. While there isn't any new mobs in the 'Bad Seed' levels, we've tweaked the numbers to make these biomes fairer.Balancing

　　The Bad Seed Blueprint drop chances of the new items lowered.Cavern mobs' health and damage lowered in all difficulties to make up for the hellish bestiary down there,The Bad Seed Mushroom Boi now break your invisibility on attack.The Bad Seed Improved Tick Scythes hitboxes to better hit downward.The Bad Seed Ticks now bump slightly on attacks.The Bad Seed Ticks now drop five cells and some gold upon death.The Bad Seed Improved Jerkshroom throwing curve to prevent direct hits from below.The Bad Seed Thrown Jerkshrooms no longer hurt you when colliding in the air.Knives Thowers now always dodge or dash once before starting to attack you.Added a protection to the player when jumping down from one-way platforms to avoid taking hits when a mob on the platform is attacking.Frozen enemies are now interrupted in their attacks.Community suggestion Removed Death Orb damage cap.Community suggestion Marksman Bow can now have damage bonus affixes.Community suggestion Ice Armor now gives damage reduction instead of bonus damages on higher levels.Community suggestion: Ice Armor and Ice Shield can no longer have affixes [that] break the ice immediately.Enemy grenades repelled by Ice Shield freeze enemies on explosion.Shield Bearers can now damage deployables.Level Design

　　The Bad Seed Slightly improved the Prison exit to Arboretum.The Bad Seed The Nest is now a right to left level to stay coherent with the Morass.The Bad Seed Neighbourgh rooms in Arboretum are now inter-connected.Graphics & UI

　　The Bad Seed Added FX for Carnivorous Plant bite.The Bad Seed Added a (very small) cinematic when entering Mama Tickarena.Quality of Life

　　The Bad Seed Community suggestion Improved Carnivorous Plantinteractions. Notably with stomps and Telluric Shock.The Bad Seed Added a warning before Carnivorous Plant bite.The Bad Seed Added a better feedback for Rythm'n Bouzouki timing.The Bad Seed Changed Rythm'n Bouzouki description to clarify that you can chain the last hit indefinitly given the correct timing.Community suggestion Elite Shrines are now colored diferently on the map.Community suggestion Added a clear explanation of what went wrong when the loading of a mod failed.Community suggestion Clarified what went wrong in the error report when trying to create a mod which may impact the DLC security.You can no longer grab ledges directly leading to spikes.Enigma doors (Courtyard's tower of roses, etc.) are now always open when the enigma has been solved once.Secret blueprints are no longer replaced by gems when they have been found once. The gold amount for the whole level stays unchanged.Bug Fixes

　　The Bad Seed Fixed Carnivorous Plants closing while a cinematic is ongoing.The Bad Seed Fixed Yeeters hitbox.The Bad Seed Fixed some bugs with Mushroom Boi running in place.The Bad Seed Fixed Rythm'n Bouzouki timing detection for the third hit.The Bad Seed Fix rare camera problems and minimap display in the Morass.(Twitch) Fixed Dual-scrolls transforming into Triple Scrolls when nobody voted.Fixed Magic Missiles and Pyrotechnics always shooting twice even when tapping the button.Fixed a certain secret boss hitbox on thrust attack.Fixed some projectiles not colliding correctly with doors.Fixed Ice Armor not protecting from spikes.Fixed some crashes