High Peak Castle

The High Peak Castle is the last biome to traverse in order to face the final boss.

High Peak Castle used to be filled with visitors and guards, among the castle grounds for many purposes. However, as of everything below it, the Malaise has put a stop to all the normal activities. The last stand of the royal guard was among these grounds, but, as the current state reads, they did not make it through. While the grand statue of The King still stands, the paintings as beautiful as ever, and the hallways still quite grand, High Peak Castle has fallen from grace. It seems that no matter how hard he tried to keep royalty safe, the Malaise won in the end. Some are to say that this is called karma.

Access and exit
High Peak Castle is accessed via the Clock Room or Guardian's Haven biomes. It is the last biome in the game before the fight in the Throne Room.

Scrolls
High Peak Castle contains 2 Power scrolls, and 2 Dual-Stat scrolls. When 3 Boss Stem Cells are active, this biome has 1 guaranteed Scroll Fragment, and when 4/5 Boss Stem Cells are active, this biome has 2 guaranteed Scroll Fragments. These cannot spawn in areas requiring the use of any runes.

Enemy tier and gear level scaling
In the table below, you will find the gear level and enemy tier of the High Peak Castle based on difficulty.

Chests and Loot

 * 1 Treasure chest behind spider rune
 * 1 Treasure chest behind ram rune
 * 1 item behind spider rune.
 * 1 item behind teleport rune.
 * 1 item behind homunculus rune.

Shops

 * 1 weapon shop.
 * 1 skill shop.

Keys
In order to make it through the castle, one must collect the keys from the Elites found in three specific areas to open the gates to the Throne Room. The Elites will always be a Slasher, two Trackers (fought at the same time) and a Thorny. The various rooms containing the Elites with the keys are engulfed respectively in a red, green and blue light.

Only two keys are required to get to the Throne Room. The third key will lead to a room that contains a Scroll of Power, two randomly generated items, and the Blueprint of the Boomerang. To reach the boomerang, one will need the Spider Rune and a very tight parkour over spikes to get to (however it can be done without the Spider Rune, but an amulet with an Affix that grants multiple jumps is required). Alternatively, if you've unlocked it, the Homunculus Rune can be used to grab it at very little risk.

Enemies
The table below lists which enemies are present in the High Peak Castle on each difficulty level and which blueprints each may drop. When applicable, the minimum difficulty level for blueprint acquisition is specified.

Lore
The Castle hides a number of lore rooms shining light upon the events that led to the downfall of the King and his court, as well as the whole Island.


 * The rotten corpse of a soldier is found next to a stained letter he wrote describing his symptoms. He was coughing blood, his body was so itchy he scratched himself until he bled, suffered headaches, blurred vision and felt down.

Trivia

 * In earlier versions, this biome was named The Castle.
 * The paintings in the Castle depict the various NPC's of the game, such as the Tutorial Knight, the Collector and others:
 * There is a painting of a mariner with tentacles for limbs and one red glowing eye hidden under a hood. This character was an NPC, now removed, found in the Pier with the purpose of announcing the player that "your vessel hasn't docked yet" as to intend that there is currently no content after the Pier. He would've then proceeded to kill the player with one of Conjunctivius' tentacles, effectively counting the run as completed.
 * A painting of the island Dead Cells itself takes place on is present.
 * A room bigger than the usual with a giant painting of the Giant when he worked as a royal guard for the King.
 * There are also many paintings with easter eggs and references to other games such as:
 * A parody of the famous painting The Scream.
 * A portrait of Alucard from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
 * A portrait of the main characters from Nier: Automata.
 * A portrait of The Knight, main character from Hollow Knight, another Metroidvania-type game.
 * A picture of a bonfire with a curved sword embedded in it, clear reference to the bonfires from the Dark Souls franchise;
 * Landscape paintings of the Obsidian Woods and Magaari Ember Highlands, from the game Duelyst.
 * A landscape of a firewatch tower, in similar style to the game Firewatch.
 * The titular sword from the game Transistor.
 * A painting of a boy walking into a culvert/cave, from the Netflix series Dark.
 * A painting of the Estate from the game Darkest Dungeon.
 * A picture of Solaire of Astora, character also from Dark Souls, in his trademark pose "Praise the Sun!".
 * A picture of Stilgar, from the 1991 game Dune.
 * The fact that there are paintings of characters from the franchises of Castlevania and Dark Souls is probably a joke about Dead Cells being a Metroidvania that shares a similiar combat system with Dark Souls.