The latest Dead Cells patch adds a Half-Life crowbar

To celebrate the launch of Half-Life: Alyx, Dead Cells has just received a small update adding a new weapon, skin and diet themed around the Half-Life universe. The weapon, of course, is the crowbar, which doles out critical hits immediately after breaking a door or "breakable prop". That's available right now, and may or may not be a desperate bid to secure free Index kits from Valve.

The other good news it that Dead Cells' next major content update, its 18th to date, is now available to play in alpha on Steam. It introduces six new enemy types, three of which are tied to specific biomes, with the others "dispatched through various levels at different Boss Cells". Motion Twin hasn't said exactly where you'll find these enemies, so you'll have to discover that yourself.

Update 18 also introduces a Portable Door. It covers "your back while you take care of the mobs in front of you and [allows] for an elegant stun effect when you decide to turn around." Expect to find eight new "normal" and three new "starred" affixes too. The full patch notes are here.

Motion Twin warns that before participating in the alpha, you'd be well advised to make a save backup. To access it, you'll need to right click on Dead Cells in your Steam library, click 'properties' and then the 'betas' tab, and then opt-in to the 'Alpha - Not for the faint hearted' option.