Developer: Cold Symmetry
Publisher: PlayStack
Reviewed On: PS5
Available On: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S
Release Date: August 20, 2026
Review Copy Provided By: PlayStack
A cosmic deity crashed upon its lands, inspiring devotion and worship among the people, which ultimately turned into frenzied despair among warring factions. That’s where you come in. You are a being “not of this earth,” awakened for the sole purpose of serving this deity and its worshippers by collecting its ova scattered throughout.
Mortal Shell 2’s world is something to behold. Its sprawling, spiraling landscapes are filled to the brim with shortcuts, secret pathways, rewards and dangers, all waiting for you with bared teeth. Crimson forests give way to foreboding limestone citadels, grimy swamps and forgotten ruins, each distinct enough to make the world feel vast. It’s amazing to see how all these magnificent spaces are connected with deadly shortcuts and portals that add surprise at every end.
There are dungeons tucked away, from abandoned libraries filled with flying books to enemy encampments and rooms so small they barely qualify as dungeons at all. Some have more panache than others, but that’s part of the fun. You never know how many monsters are lying in wait around the corner.
And I was lost. Constantly. At first, I tried to familiarize myself with the different biomes and locations, memorizing landmarks, enemy placements and even specific giant boulders so I could piece together some sort of mental map. Eventually, I realized how futile that was. It was far easier to let go and trust the roads to take me wherever they wanted, and somehow, I was never disappointed.
Every ridge, winding path and darkened corridor seemed to hide something worth finding. A new Shell, a strange encounter, a hidden dungeon, or some miserable creature with a story to tell. Mortal Shell 2 rewards you for being curious, but it also has a vicious way of reminding you of the dangers of curiosity.
That’s what makes exploring these lands so exhilarating. The game doesn’t simply throw rewards at you for taking the road less traveled; it gives you reasons to wonder what lies beyond the next ridge. You might stumble across a giant toad reminiscing about the old days, discover a strange creature begging to be freed from a hunter’s cage, or wander into something that looks harmless until you see bodies coming up from the ground and you lick your lips, knowing someone is on the menu and it’s definitely not you.
The beacons scattered throughout the world are another little twist I really liked. At first, they look like your typical bonfire-style checkpoints, somewhere to catch your breath before heading back out into whatever nightmare is waiting for you. But they’re more than that. You can actually enter them as miniature dungeons and cleanse them for rewards, turning what would normally just be a checkpoint into another little challenge. It’s such a simple idea, but I love when games take something familiar and change things up a bit.
There’s a sense of discovery here that, in its own way, rivals Elden Ring. Mortal Shell 2 may not have Elden Ring’s sprawling continents, but it understands the secret to making a world feel that big: give me a reason to wonder what’s over the next ridge.
There’s a certain viciousness to Mortal Shell 2 that is difficult to explain until you feel it yourself. Every swing, punch and stomp lands with a weight that makes you wince; you hear the crunch, the thud, the tearing of flesh, then watch as limbs buckle, heads snap and bodies crumple under the impact. And the worst part is knowing that none of this is reserved for your enemies. Maybe it’s the animation, the sound design, or simply the way every little piece comes together, but Mortal Shell 2 makes violence feel physical in a way few games manage. This is a vicious world, and surviving it means embracing that viciousness, committing to every swing, every dodge, every step into the unknown, and becoming just a little more vicious than whatever is in front of you.
There are more than half a dozen weapons to choose from, and I like it this way. Rather than throwing a hundred weapons at you where half of which doing roughly the same thing, Mortal Shell 2 keeps its arsenal focused, with each weapon having its own identity. You have a great hammer that pummels your foes in as few swings as possible, a greatsword that moves with some of the most violently beautiful animations I’ve seen in a game, or my personal favorite, a dual katana that transforms into a freaking axe when you switch to its heavy attack. How cool is that? Better yet, you can pair any weapon with any Shell, opening up combinations that weren’t possible in the first game. An agile Shell can wield something as imposing as a greatsword, while a tankier Shell can compensate for its bulk with a faster weapon. It’s a simple addition, but one that gives you considerably more freedom to build a playstyle around how you actually want to fight.
From semi-automatic machine bows to what looks like a gunzooka to a freaking guitar, the added sidearms in Mortal Shell 2 are a total game changer. Gone are the days of awkwardly dancing around enemies trying to forcefully maintain your distance, because now you can just zone them out from afar. It’s not as OP as it sounds though, thanks to a resolve bar that acts as your FP or mana pool. You build it up by landing melee attacks, but that same bar is also used for your skills, so you’re constantly weighing when to get in there and smack someone around, when to pull out your sidearm, and when to spend that resolve on a skill. It’s a simple system that adds another layer to the already ridiculous amount of ways you can approach combat, and with how the rest of the game is constructed, I can absolutely see someone building their entire run around a sidearm-first playstyle.
The biggest change to combat, though, is something that isn’t there at all: a stamina bar. At first, I thought this would make Mortal Shell 2 far more forgiving. But you’re still at the mercy of recovery frames from your attacks, dodges and skills. You can swing again as soon as your character allows you to, but that doesn’t mean you’re free to do whatever you want. Every action still has a commitment to it, and mistiming even the simplest dodge can leave you wide open. It sounds like a small distinction, but it completely changes how combat flows. You’re no longer watching a stamina bar to decide. You’re watching your own animations, your enemy and the space between you. And this makes combat much faster, more free, more vicious. The game lets you keep swinging, keep dodging, keep throwing yourself into the fray, right up until you decide that healing is better instead.
You’ll often find yourself outnumbered in Mortal Shell 2’s world. And they all want their turn, except they won’t exactly wait for you to lock onto them. They include the quintessential dark fantasy baddies: dancing witches draped in flowers, swole Ents ready to clobber you with their gains, and sword-wielding phantoms that seem to come out of nowhere. Mortal Shell 2 kicks the variety up a notch with gigantic snails that crush you with their pincers when you are, ironically, “too slow” to react; demon babies that kamikaze straight into you and leave you standing in a cloud of blood; and femme fatales with an insta-kill parry.
I may sound like I’m complaining, but these enemies are genuinely a joy to fight. There’s enough variety to keep encounters feeling fresh, and more importantly, the game spreads them across biomes in ways that actually make sense. The enemies feel like they belong where you find them, rather than being thrown together simply to fill an area with something to kill.
And they are freaking aggressive. They’ll pile on, chase you far beyond where you expected them to stop, and occasionally drag half the bloody area into a fight you thought you had under control. It can turn a simple encounter into absolute chaos, honestly their overagression crosses the line at times.
The bosses, for the most part, are great. Unfortunately, I can’t say that any of them really stood out for me. They’re well-designed encounters that test everything you’ve learned, but none left the kind of impression that some of the game’s stranger enemies did. And there are some wonderfully bizarre ones, from a woman in a weaponized wheelchair to a literal cosmic horror that feels like it crawled out of another dimension. Scattered throughout the dungeons are minibosses as well, usually normal enemies with larger health bars and a title that demands a little more caution.
My first boss in particular left me with a rather sour taste. I spent more than an hour beating my head against it, as its third phase had a couple of attacks with split-second wind-ups that insta-killed and left me wondering whether I was being outplayed or I was constantly in a 50-50 situation and I was “minus on dodge”. Once I played more safe than aggressive, the fight became much more manageable, but it was one of those moments where Mortal Shell 2’s viciousness crossed the line from exhilarating to frustrating.
The shell in mortal shell is the trick. Lose your health and you don’t die, you get thrown out of the body you’re wearing. No abilities, no skills, no safety net. Just you and a meter you have to fill by smacking things in melee before something puts you down for good or you get back in. It makes healing a real decision, too. Do you burn a heal on the Shell you’re in, or hold onto it knowing you’re about to get knocked out of it anyway?
Finding them is half the fun. The first two are marked for you, and after that you’re on your own. Some are tucked away in dungeons, some are locked behind mini quests, and some are just sitting out in the world waiting for you to wander past. I held off on marking my map for as long as I could, because I wanted to stumble into these things rather than tick them off a list, and every single time it paid off.
There are more than half a dozen Shells to find, and each one feels unique. Some are built around speed, others can take a beating, and some come with abilities that can completely change how you approach a fight. Tiel, for example, is wrapped up in this story of disease and addiction, and his abilities reflect that in ways that make him feel like the cunning thief that he was. Then you have Proxima, whose hook can yank you toward an enemy before adding a little lightning to the equation.
What makes this even better is that you’re not locked into some predetermined idea of how a Shell should be played. You can pair any of them with whatever weapon you want, throw in trinkets, unlock their individual skills and then start making some truly broken combinations. You could take an agile Shell and give it a massive greatsword, or slap a fast weapon onto something built to take punishment.
But what ended up fascinating me even more than what these Shells could do was who they were. Each one comes with their own story, and the more you interact with them, the more the game lets you peel back the layers. Little conversations, discoveries and moments around the world gradually give you more of an idea of who these people were before you came along, and some of those stories genuinely surprised me. There were moments that tugged at my heartstrings, and others that hit me with a critical hit, resulting in a shed tear or two.
Mortal Shell 2 is the AA answer to Elden Ring. More focused, no less vicious, and every bit as hard to put down. This land wants you dead, but it rewards every step. So cut down the horrors and don’t you dare go hollow.
Mortal Shell II (PS5)
Mortal Shell 2 is the AA answer to Elden Ring. More focused, no less vicious, and every bit as hard to put down. This land wants you dead, but it rewards every step. So cut down the horrors and don't you dare go hollow.
The Good
- Amazing World
- Good Combat
- Interweaving stories
The Bad
- Enemy Aggro
