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Mortal Shell 2 Delivers Tight Combat but Struggles With Its Open World

PCGamesN praises the shell-based combat and boss encounters, notes confusing map design and Steam Machine performance problems, and says a day-one patch is expected to address bugs.

Overview

  • The review highlights the shell system as the game's core strength: each shell grants distinct skills, ties to a former person's backstory, and grows stronger as players explore that history.
  • Boss fights stand out as satisfying and challenging encounters that capture the reward loop fans expect from Soulslike games.
  • The open, interconnected world is described as hollow and hard to navigate, with an unclear map and few direction cues that make exploration more frustrating than rewarding.
  • Technical testing on Valve's Steam Machine found good performance at base settings but severe frame-rate drops on high settings and a bug that left a player's gloom lost out of bounds after death.
  • The reviewer criticizes the game's accessibility approach, saying the Slayer seal item does little to lower challenge compared with a true easy mode, and notes a day-one patch is expected to fix reported issues.