How to unlock the Morning Star in Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania DLC

Dead Cells’ Return to Castlevania DLC packs in a veritable armory of vampire-slaying tools, granting player access to the likes of the Throwing Axe, Bible, and even the legendary Vampire Killer whip. These new weapons give you a lot to mess around with in your runs, and they’re all unlocked in the ways you’d expect: via blueprints dropped by enemies and bosses, or hidden in secret areas. The Morning Star is different, however. Figuring out how to unlock the Morning Star in Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania DLC will be nearly impossible for those unaware of the long history of the series and its developer. Unless of course they read the following guide, which explains the whole process.

Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania – How to awaken the Morning Star

Before you can get your hands on this weapon, you’ll first need to be wearing one of the Castlevania-themed outfits added in the Return to Castlevania DLC. There are many options for this, including the Alucard Outfit, the Trevor and Sypha Outfits, and even the timeless Richter Outfit. Once you’ve unlocked one of these, change into it via The Tailor at the start of Prisoners’ Quarters.

Now comes the tricky part. In order to unlock the Morning Star, you’ll need to enter the famous Konami Code, a legendary button combination used to gain advantages in classic Konami titles such as Contra and Gradius. The code is as follows:

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A

If you’re playing on a controller, be sure to use the left stick for the directional inputs, as the D-pad doesn’t seem to work. If performed correctly, the Morning Star will appear right next to your location. Grab it, and you’ll unlock the Morning Star for use in all of your future runs. It’s worth noting that, in addition to finding the Morning Star in shops and at random, you can also summon one using this method at any point in a run, but only once per run. If you do, the Morning Star will be scaled accordingly in terms of level.

Screenshot by PC Invasion

The Morning Star itself is a nice Brutality-scaling weapon, emulating the iconic ‘wiggly’ whip of Super Castlevania IV in its moveset. You can freely swing the spiked head of the whip around, and doing so for over one second will cause the Morning Star to start inflicting critical hits on your foes. It’s quite fast for a Brutality weapon, and can deal good damage later on in a run, particularly if you wait until the final biome to enter the code and claim it.

And with that, you now know how to unlock the Morning Star in Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania DLC. If you’re a Brutality player, don’t forget this weapon exists, as it can be grabbed any time to help you out in a difficult run.