Runes and Upgrades

Runes are permanent upgrades which enable the player to travel to locations and Biomes which are not accessible otherwise. Once acquired, the player's collected runes can be viewed in the saved game slot (in the main game menu, under "play"). The only way to acquire runes is to travel to specific zones and defeat a Boss or an Elite enemy, which spawn from certain Elite obelisks.

There are currently nine runes in Dead Cells: the Vine Rune, the Teleportation Rune, the Challenger Rune, the Ram Rune, the Spider Rune, the Homunculus Rune, the Customization Rune, and the Explorer's Rune. All runes will drop after the guardian is defeated and can be picked up afterwards, save for the Homunculus rune, which is acquired automatically after The Hand of the King is defeated.