Mortal Shell II Reviews
Mortal Shell 2 grows in stature and self-assurance from the first game, establishing itself as an excellent Soulslike with a rhythm of its own.
I had an absolute blast with Mortal Shell II; it's not only a competitive, difficult Soulslike, but it also brings much-needed, welcome updates to the genre. Come for the combat and the exploration; stay for the fun and brutality.
Review key provided by the publisher.
Although Mortal Shell 2 starts off far more forgiving than genre veterans might expect, it compensates over time with escalated enemy encounters and dynamic boss fights that reward precise timing and strategic positioning. Enhanced by breathtakingly bleak visuals and immersive audio-visual world building, it stands as a commendable follow-up-even if a few early-game shortcomings prevent it from claiming a spot among the elite.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Mortal Shell II shows significant improvement over the first game, with more dynamic combat, great ideas, and an interesting world to explore. Despite some technical and design issues, the experience is quite enjoyable and shows Cold Symmetry's potential to continue developing the franchise. With a few adjustments, the game has everything to become one of the best soulslikes released in recent years.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Mortal Shell 2 deconstructs familiar souls-like mechanics in genuinely exciting ways, with dynamic stamina-free combat and deep build variety across Shells, Seals, and Tarstones — even if some fall damage frustrations and predictable mini-bosses hold it back from greatness.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Mortal Shell 2’s expansion into a large scale action-RPG is mostly successful, and all of its new ideas are great ones.
Mortal Shell 2 constantly surprised me, whether it was the mechanics behind a newly discovered Shell, the layered improvements to combat, a bulbous monstrosity of a boss fight that was more mouth than anything else, or the ways you can tinker with a build and make it wholly your own.
Mortal Shell II is a 'fun-forward' souls-like, one that values flexibility and variety over sheer difficulty. It grabs you and plies you with a plethora of options for tackling its monsters, dungeons, and bosses, handing you shiny toys and trusts you to work out what to do with them.
Mortal Shell II tries some new things while looking and running beautiful.
If Cold Symmetry can fix the bugs that plague some of the bosses, Mortal Shell II will go down as one of the best Soulslikes on the market right now.
Mortal Shell 2 is one of the best follow-up sequels to a game in a long time. It expands upon every single aspect of the first game, twists deeper into its metal roots, and hammers out the dents of the original title while retaining the same brutal, unforgiving gameplay Soulslike fanatics have come to masochistically enjoy. Mortal Shell 2 slays.
Only a few bugs, a bit more polish, and the somewhat weak narrative might pose a problem, but none of that detracts from the fact that Mortal Shell 2 is a high-quality soulslike . You're going to have a blast playing it.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Mortal Shell 2 is an impressive Soulslike that improves on its predecessor in nearly every way, even with a few rough edges to work around.
Mortal Shell 2 is such an immensely impressive upgrade from the original that I wanted it to be flawless. Of course, it isn’t. However, issues with pacing, opacity, occasional difficulty spikes, and bugs are dwarfed by Cold Symmetry’s overall achievement.
Both frustrating and intriguing all the same, Mortal Shell II vastly improves on the original title with a world filled with secret dungeons about while routinely kicking the player's teeth in without mercy.
Mortal Shell II turned out to be a benchmark work of fixing the mistakes of its predecessor. The world exploration is engaging, and the player is rewarded for their curiosity. The weapons and shells offer plenty of room for experimentation. Of course, Cold Symmetry won't escape the label of "yet another Dark Souls clone," but the studio has done a lot to appeal to players who consciously avoid this genre.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Mortal Shell II's eviscerating difficulty and grimdark world work to grind the player into a fine paste. But its build variety and satisfying loop often turn the tide, rewarding exploration and experimentation to brave enough players.
Mortal Shell 2 is an excellent Soulslike that meaningfully expands on the original with engaging exploration, satisfying combat and progression mechanics.
Mortal Shell II is easily one of the biggest improvements from one entry to the next that I've seen in this space.