Hey, you! Yes, you – do you love the indie roguelike game “Dead Cells”? Well, boy, do I have news for you. Feel the top and sides of your head really quickly. Yeah, that’s it. Now do the same thing by rubbing your forearm, then your shin. Do you feel that? Guess what, buddy: all of the strands of hair on your entire body are actually dead cells! 

Pretty cool, huh? Bet you figured the title of Motion Twin’s hit 2018 metroidvania was just a cool, made-up phrase. But art imitates life, as they say. “Oh, I thought the game’s title was a reference to the parasitic cell that takes over the body of the Prisoner, and was a meta-commentary on how you, the player, are actually be a parasite yourself as you’re controlling a dead body,” you may be saying to yourself. Huh. That’s an interesting idea, I actually hadn’t thought about it that way before. But that’s just one theory of many! 

It gets even deeper, though: the dead cells that your hair is made up of have hardened, died and been pushed out of the follicle. They can’t feel pain when you cut them because they’re biologically inactive. Remind you of anything? No? I’ll give you a hint: it’s sort of similar to how the Prisoner in “Dead Cells” is a ‘hardened’ warrior who ‘pushes out’ of the Island’s prison in order to kill the King. I know. The hair just keeps on coming. 

I can see you scratching the stubble on your beard (dead cells too, btw) as you ponder these various connections. Well get ready to have your mind blown even further. There are multiple characters throughout the game who have hair – the Tutorial Knight, the Tailor, and even the King himself. This means that while you’re progressing through the story, the game is actually presenting you with characters who themselves have dead cells. It’s like, dead cell-ception. 

Now that you know that dead cells exist in real life in the form of hair, I bet you’re pretty excited. So go now out into the world and let everyone know about the revelations you’ve discovered here. I’m sure your friends will be very excited to learn that they made “Dead Cells” into a real thing. I just hope I haven’t awakened anything within you.