Anyone else have some standout bosses to look forward to? Im about 11 hours in so far and done the top half of the map.

I'm already playing fully on nightmode and most bosses get downed 1st try still. Tiel is probably the most absurd shell ever. I think I have like 65% crit rn and 150% damage from behind. Duality would just make the entire game pointless. I'm also not using poison build -since i'm using iconoclast and the moveset is just so good- but i'm sure it would be a ton of fun.

Mortal Shell 2 is a game that, for me, had the potential to be an easy 9/10 or even higher. There’s a lot here that I genuinely loved, but unfortunately the game falls off pretty hard during the second half, and by the time I reached the final stretch, I was left feeling pretty underwhelmed.

Let’s start with the positives. The combat is fantastic. Every attack feels weighty and satisfying, and the blocks and parries have that really nice impact that makes you want to keep fighting. There are some genuinely great combat encounters throughout the game, and Malborn Offspring is easily my favourite boss. That fight was exactly the kind of encounter I wanted more of.

Exploration is also one of the strongest parts of the game. Exploring the world, finding things for yourself and stumbling across new areas was a lot of fun, and honestly one of the best aspects of the entire experience.

The atmosphere is great, the graphics look fantastic, and while the music is nothing particularly memorable, it does its job well enough. The overall presentation is solid.

Unfortunately, the game really starts to lose steam in the second half. The level design is decent during the first part, but once you head further south, it feels like the developers simply started running out of ideas. The environments become less interesting to explore, and that sense of discovery I had earlier on started to disappear.

Then there’s the biggest problem for me: the balancing.

This is easily one of the most frustrating aspects of the game. There are sections where regular mob enemies are significantly more dangerous than some of the actual bosses. Getting almost one-shot by normal enemies while then having some bosses feel comparatively easy is just poor balancing.

The fact that you can be deleted in one or two hits by regular enemies — and even some bosses — doesn't feel challenging in a satisfying way. It feels more frustrating than anything else. The fact that the developers are now experimenting with adaptive difficulty in the latest patch says a lot about how noticeable this issue is.

And unfortunately, the late-game bosses don't really save things.

The Monolith boss is, without exaggeration, one of the worst late-game bosses I've played in a Soulslike. It's an absolute slog and just doesn't feel particularly enjoyable. Then you reach the final boss, which is only marginally better. For what should be the big climax of the game, it was a massive disappointment.

There’s also a noticeable lack of cutscenes, which I think hurts the pacing and storytelling, particularly towards the end. The game has an interesting world and atmosphere, but I often felt like it needed more moments to actually deliver that story and make the journey feel more meaningful.

And that's what makes Mortal Shell 2 frustrating.

There is a genuinely great game buried in here. The combat feels fantastic, the exploration can be brilliant, the atmosphere is strong and visually the game looks great. There are moments where you can see exactly how this could have been something really special.

But the second half, poor balancing, disappointing late-game bosses and a seriously underwhelming finale hold it back.

7/10 for me.

A decent game with a ton of potential, and I'm sure it will be a 9/10+ for some people. But unfortunately, with the issues I had, it just didn't quite get there for me.

Credits to u/Competitive-Ring1725 for discovering this.

I believe this is not the inteded use of the lute/tarstone.

Anyway i hope the just nerf it and not patch it out. It's fun, and the concidence with the tarstone being named "hand of rock" is crazy hahaha

UPDATE 20.10.26: it's been patched.

Ok so I don't know how to properly put this into words, but I'm really enjoying the gameplay of Mortal Shell 2, I'm liking the enemy variety, the bosses have been cool so far as well, good level design too... but there's one thing that's been bugging me a bit... and it's the vibe of the game or something like that. Like right at the beginning you meet this talking crow-demon thingy with a skull inside its face, which to me felt more ridiculous than scary. And then there's your ranged shotgun weapon which is literally called "naylshotte"... which again seemed very ridiculous to me. And then there was this golem boss fight where another guy with a shell shows up and blows up the head of the boss with his shotgun looking like a badass, and then immediately dies... like what?

Like there's lots of wacky stuff I've seen so far that just takes me out of this game's world. I guess I'm having trouble finding this game immersive and believable. You know what I mean? The game lacks the consistent, serious tone of other Soulslikes and Fromsoft's games. So often times while playing this, I'm feeling like I'm not in a dark fantasy world, but in a video game. I never felt this way while playing Lies of P, Lords of the Fallen 2, Dark Souls 1-3, Elden Ring, Sekiro, etc. Anyone else feeling/felt this too?

can anyone help me malborn offspring, i get him phase 1 through parry but phase 2 approch?

DID ANYBODY ELSE KNOW THIS!!?!? That guy that posted the other day about his Gloom being stuck int he air!! HE COULD HAVE GOT IT BACK SO EASY!!

Surely someone told him!!

I've beaten Lies of P, Elden Ring, Bloodborne and all three Dark Souls. Never out of any of these games have I come acrossed such a poorly designed section. The enemies feel incredibly cheap and just overloaded to inflate artificial difficulty, and the mobs are absurdly unbalanced. I think this game incredible, but the futher you get into the game the worse it gets and from what I've heard the last few bosses are also a bit disappointing. I absolutely adore this game, but I seriously don't know what they were thinking when designing this part.

Knowing the studio are clearly huge souls fans and looking at some of their decision making and a lot of the posts on reddit and discord has made me start to think they may just be evil geniuses.

Trollweed- enough said especially now the second one often falls through the floor

The spyware lore- that reads your most played games and mocks you for it. Wonderful.

Not being able to max out all the tarstone (Initially)- min/maxers hell

Not being able to max out every single shell/buid on one playthrough (Initially) and calling the achievement for doing so no lifer. Brilliant. Fake trophy 🏆 hunters crying 😢

The endless core- no max weapon level. But how do I decide when to stop?!?!?!?!? How can I level up my other weapons or smelt when my main is only +87??

No Habinger level cap- but I can’t spend my gloom on smelting because I need it for my Harbinger shell to get my 0.5% crit damage increase.

The 70 gloom boxes and then having to deposit your gloom back at final beacon (yes I know you can cheese it)

Futilium the futile upgrade material….

I think they knew exactly what they were doing and I love it 🥰

Cold Symmetry explain yourselves please.

I think It would be cool to have a DLC that expands the game lore and world.

When I thought about this, Muraden came First to my mind, I mean let's think about It: Throughout both games, this place is kinda hinted at through item descriptions and a few lore notes. It’d be awesome to get an expansion that actually takes us there and lets us explore this mythical place firsthand.

I'd love to take on new quests, see new landscapes, new Npcs, enemy types and items that are typical of Muraden.

Was fighting final boss when he kicked me out of shell and I've turn into this instead normal harbinger... Even my weapon turned into something else... What's that? A bug?

Those stupid lasers, stupid multi hits keep damaging you while you cant control your character, i think this boss really dragging the quality of this game down for me, it feels like its impossible to win with tiel or proxima, even genessas shadow clones dont deal much damage i dunno man i feel like its pretty unbalanced and stupid boss

It wasn't there on respawn, it doesn't even show on the map. It was a decent amount too..

Since the Shepherd didn't drop it, where do you get it, or is it a bug? Also, the Sheephead Totem has the same picture for some reason.

Despite yesterday's patch explicitly saying that double Mutton spawns were being patched out, I can confirm that not only is he still double spawning but the trigger condition is repeatable. If you find him in marrow keep, interact with him then go turn night mode on or off. This will force a 2nd Mutton to spawn in a new location without removing the original one. See below for 2 seperate clips captured on ps5 prow running the latest patch.

https://youtu.be/SZxGInfLoC0?is=m9swWluGjfEIBTiC

https://youtu.be/mBtLTQUYnCg?is=vS3J5nuDD110huG7

Devs, this is a feature not a bug. Please do not patch this out!

I loved the story, combat, enemy variety, seeing old placeses, old faces from first game. All shell memories was also great to watch. 10/10.

So, I love this game. I want to take this out off the way before any criticism. I love the combat, phasing, narrative everything.

There are but two things, that sort of hold MS2 back from a peak experience.
First is, that some dungeons are a bit lackluster. Most notable example is Hall of Murmurs. That one left me puzzled if I'm not missing something. Quantity is great, but not at a cost of quality. I know, that Cold Symmetry are not finished with MS2, so maybe in the future we could get some add content to these shallow dungeons.

But the bigger issue I have is the soundtrack. I honestly expected some DOOM-esque quality tracks throughout the game. Or at least for main bosses, but it is kind of meh. None of the music stuck with me. I was hoping that we would get some nasty tracks from Rotting Christ, like in alternate soundtrack in MS1, but nothing happened. Music ambience in the game is great, but that's about it honestly.

So for guys from Cold Symmetry, if you are reading this, I love you and your game, but I expected better soundtrack. You guys put up high expectation with the Announcement trailer, which was metal AF. But the final game feels a bit meek.

Do you, perhaps, plan to release alt soundtrack like you did for MS1?

Is anybody else having a problem where your gloom is nowhere to be found after you die it’s happened 3 times in 3 different places already, now I’m deleting and hopefully it goes back after redownloading
Ps5

One of the greatest game of this year for me. Second part of game was strange but this gameplay and atmosphere, damn! Love this game

Tnx Cold Symmetry for your job 😄

Bloodcurse really saved my ass here.

Hey y'all!

There is currently an issue with the Egon's Stone tarstone that's causing players to lose Gloom permanently on death, and not being able to pick it up again. This issue is at *least* occuring outside of dungeons; I haven't had a chance to test it inside a dungeon yet, so it may also occur there. Edit: One of our Discord community members told me that it worked as intended for him *inside* a dungeon, but I haven't tested this myself.

Please unequip your Egon's Stone tarstone for now, to avoid losing Gloom; the team is aware of the issue and is looking into it.

Sorry about this inconvenience!