Mortal Shell 2 brings a fresh twist to the Souls-like formula

Mortal Shell 2 wears its souls-like influences on its sleeve: a grim fantasy setting steeped in gothic, medieval, and otherworldly imagery; combat that rewards patience and punishes recklessness with hefty, satisfying blows; beacons that serve as rest points where you trade respawning foes for restored health; and a level-up currency that drops on death and must be reclaimed before you lose it for good.

On paper, that might read like just another souls-like—perhaps even too derivative for its own good. But Cold Symmetry's sequel isn't content to be a safe imitation. It takes the familiar pieces of the genre and reshapes them in ways that matter, carving out a distinct identity in a space that's become increasingly crowded.

Having bounced off the first game almost immediately, I went into Mortal Shell 2 with no expectations, and its unconventional take kept catching me off guard. At its core, it deconstructs some of the genre's foundational ideas and rebuilds them so they feel new again.

The clearest example is the complete removal of a stamina meter. You can attack and dodge as much as you like without pausing to let a bar refill. This gives combat a relentless rhythm, whether you're pressing the attack or fighting for your life. Instead of retreating after sidestepping a combo, you can immediately fire back with your own flurry of strikes, or cut down weaker mobs without running out of gas halfway through.

That doesn't turn it into a mindless hack-and-slasher. Attack animations can't be canceled, so every swing has to be deliberate. Overcommitting leaves you exposed, especially with slower weapons like the Great Martyr's Blade or the Obsidian Hammer.

Dropping stamina makes a real difference, and it's one of the biggest ways the sequel improves on its predecessor's combat, which often suffered from sluggish encounters. It's still not fast-paced by any stretch, but the animations are noticeably snappier without sacrificing weight or brutality.

The act of cutting, stabbing, and bashing enemies apart with melee weapons is best described as meaty. There's a satisfying crunch as you cleave through flesh and sever heads, limbs, and less human appendages in a spray of crimson. A varied arsenal and enemy roster back it up. From a large scythe and a long spear to dual katanas that combine into an axe, each weapon feels distinct, and alternating light and heavy attacks to chain combos is a genuine pleasure.

My only real complaint is that experimenting with more weapons isn't practical as your arsenal grows. By the midpoint, I was swimming in upgrade materials but only had enough money to fully upgrade a single weapon. Trying out others beyond a quick test wasn't worth it, since swapping a fully upgraded weapon for a bare one made no sense when I could never bring it up to par.

You also carry a sidearm, beginning with a short-range shotgun before unlocking stranger options like a miniature Gatling gun and a lute that, when strummed hard, turns enemies against each other. Each shot costs Resolve, which you refill by landing melee hits, so sidearms are woven into the combat loop, adding another satisfying way to tear enemies apart.

The enemies themselves come in every shape and size: armored knights with swords or spears, quick-footed assassins, religious zealots, oversized bearded skulls that scuttle on four legs, insectoid creatures with lethal pincers, rock-hurling giants, and plenty more. Variety does taper in the back half, leaning on variants of familiar foes rather than all-new ones, but there are so many different opponents that repetition rarely becomes an issue. They're not just visually distinct, either—each type approaches you differently, mixing up attack patterns and feints to keep you guessing.

While dodging is always an option, Mortal Shell 2 offers several defensive tools to suit different playstyles. The Harden mechanic from the first game returns, letting you calcify to absorb a hit, but now it's tied to a Seal. Seals are new to the sequel: you can equip only one at a time, and each houses what would normally be a standard souls-like mechanic.

Blocking, for instance, comes with a Seal that also enables parries, building break damage until enemies become vulnerable to a powerful riposte. Another Seal strips away blocking but tightens the parry window, trading safety for bigger break damage when your timing is perfect.

This opens up build variety, especially when paired with the titular Mortal Shells. As in the first game, you play as a faceless husk called the Harbinger, a weak being capable of inhabiting fallen warriors. There are eight Shells total, each found at its character's final resting place—slumped and impaled on a greatsword, hastily buried in a shallow grave, or displayed in a mausoleum beneath the Royal Keep.

Every Shell follows a rigid archetype with fixed stats that can be upgraded but not altered. That might sound limiting, but it creates real differences in how each plays, particularly with their unique abilities, while variety comes from your choice of weapons, Seals, and Tarstones.

I spent most of my time as Eredrim, a knight who can lunge with a devastating shoulder bash that deals heavy break damage. His passive, aptly named Executioner, lets you instantly kill low-health enemies. Ripostes stack the ability, raising the health threshold at which executions trigger. If you like staying on the offensive, Eredrim is a joy, but the other Shells are just as interesting.

Tiel is a thief who briefly turns invisible, striking from the shadows with a dagger. Any Shell can equip the parry Seal, but Tiel excels as a nimble fighter, with perfectly timed dodges turning you invisible and staggering enemies.

Sariel, meanwhile, fires parasitic thorns that seek out nearby foes, negating their next melee attack while inflicting Pain on Sariel. Pain adds a grey segment to your health bar that can be lost in one hit or cured by dealing melee damage. With no Pain, a massive 50% of incoming damage becomes Pain. Hitting the Pain cap lets you dodge faster, making Sariel a masochistic build that thrives when things hurt most.

Tarstones add another layer to build crafting, unlocking everything from specific buffs to powerful special attacks. They're found by exploring, clearing dungeons, and beating bosses, so once I'd collected enough, I geared mine toward maximum melee damage. With each Tarstone fully maxed, I raised critical damage by 100%, pushed critical chance to 18%, and guaranteed a critical hit every five attacks. It's a remarkably flexible system that widens the gap between the usual strength and dexterity paths, keeping build variety central to the game's design.

With so many tools available, Mortal Shell 2 still manages a decent difficulty balance. For the most part, it's challenging but hits the souls-like sweet spot where it rarely feels unfair. Deaths are usually your own fault, and there's always room to improve, both as a player and through character upgrades.

There are also a couple of difficulty modifiers: a specific Seal that eases things at the cost of disabling Achievements, and an item that raises difficulty while unlocking a few otherwise inaccessible areas. The fact that it isn't a simple binary choice fits the genre, though locking Achievements behind an easier mode feels harsh, even if most peers refuse to offer any easier option at all.

The default challenge comes with caveats. While it mostly feels fair, falling to your death happens far too often for my taste. The entire open-world map floats in the air, so there are plenty of spots where you can slip off, especially since many attacks knock you back several feet. Some of that is on me, but dozens of times, tumbling off a cliff felt cheap and frustrating. Dying more to fall damage than to bosses is a travesty.

Part of this comes down to level design, and part to some bosses having overly simple attack patterns. It affects mini-bosses more than headline fights, and the generous default parry window doesn't help. Against regular enemies, usually in groups, it's not a big deal. It stands out more when a mini-boss is too predictable to be engaging.

Beyond the dangerous ledges, Mortal Shell 2's open world is a fascinating place to explore. It's not as sprawling as Elden Ring's Lands Between—you won't find vast open fields—but it's dense. Each area feels like a dedicated level from a more linear game, all interconnected with multiple entry and exit points.

Its castles and murky swamps can feel a bit derivative, but there are usually visual flourishes that stand out even in familiar settings. One abbey is so muted it looks almost monochrome, yet red leaves wrapped around its cold stone walls create a striking burst of color. Elsewhere, you'll find unsettling human teeth carved into cave walls, monolithic structures breaking the horizon, and a once-picturesque village now overrun by rabid cultists. Material rewards await those who explore, but the sights are often reward enough.

Mortal Shell 2 kept surprising me—whether through the mechanics of a newly discovered Shell, the layered combat improvements, a bulbous monstrosity of a boss that was more mouth than anything else, or the ways you can tinker with a build and make it entirely your own. It stumbles at times and could use fine-tuning to smooth out its balance issues, but even when it's irritating or too simple, those moments are overshadowed by its unmistakable strengths.

Source: the original publisher