There are some games that make you appreciate having a Steam Deck in the first place. Mortal Shell 2 is one of them. I have been playing a lot of modern releases lately, and honestly, I have become pretty demanding when it comes to handheld performance. If a game looks fantastic but runs like a…
I’ve played enough Soulslikes to know when a game is hiding something behind a wall of vague dialogue, strange corpses, and NPCs who look like they haven’t slept in 400 years. Mortal Shell 2 does exactly that. But this time, I think there’s a much bigger idea underneath all the blood, cosmic horror, dead warriors,…
If there is one thing Mortal Shell 2 gets absolutely right, it is the feeling that every new piece of gear might completely change the way you approach a fight. Cold Symmetry and Playstack have taken the brutal Soulslike foundation of the original and expanded it into something much larger, with an interconnected open world,…
Mortal Shell 2 surprised me in a way I did not expect. After spending years playing Soulslikes, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what Cold Symmetry would do with a sequel. I expected tougher bosses, nastier environments, and more complicated builds. What I did not expect was how much the Tarstone system…
There are two kinds of players in a Soulslike: the ones who happily walk through a fog gate with half their resources missing, and the ones who refuse to touch the next boss until every suspicious-looking corner of the map has been checked. I am absolutely the second type. And Mortal Shell 2 feels like…
If there is one thing I have learned from playing Soulslikes for years, it is that developers love taking something you just got comfortable with and ripping it away from you. Mortal Shell 2 does exactly that. The sequel opens with a familiar face. Harros the Vassal returns as the first Shell you control, giving…
Mortal Shell 2 is shaping up to be a very different beast from the compact Soulslike that first put Cold Symmetry on the map. The original Mortal Shell had a reputation for being tough, stylish, atmospheric, and—most importantly—short. You could finish it without dedicating an entire month of your life to the grind. The sequel…
Mortal Shell 2 is the kind of game that makes you feel clever one minute and completely useless the next. After spending a lot of time with difficult action RPGs, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what to expect here. I was wrong in a few pleasant ways. Cold Symmetry has taken…
Mortal Shell 2 is the kind of game that immediately tells you it does not care whether you have played every Soulslike ever made. I went into it expecting something familiar: slow stamina management, careful rolls, predictable openings, and the usual dance around an enemy while watching a green bar. Then the game took the…
If there is one thing Mortal Shell 2 gets right immediately, it is the feeling that Fallgrim is a place rather than a collection of levels. The original game was compact, brutal, and deliberately claustrophobic. Its sequel takes that foundation and stretches it into a much larger interconnected world filled with hidden routes, strange landmarks,…
