The first game announced at tonight's Summer Game Fest live show was a pretty solid surprise: Mortal Shell 2, a direct follow-up to the 2020 Soulslike action RPG from developer Cold Symmetry.
Mortal Shell 2 is coming to PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC (Steam) in 2026.
At first blush, it looks like an embellished, even grosser iteration on the first game – hopefully with tight combat and level design this time.
Mortal Shell was a fun, fairly short little action romp that was absolutely crying out for a sequel that could refine its legitimately interesting ideas, so Mortal Shell 2 is exciting stuff indeed.
"Mortal Shell II is a standalone sequel action-RPG with adrenaline-charged, high-stakes combat," Cold Symmetry says of the reveal trailer. "Possess warrior Shells, dethrone false gods, redeem a ravaged world."
Mortal Shell 2's fresh-from-the-oven Steam page says it "significantly expands on the original with unrestricted, adrenaline-charged combat, deeper weapon design with extensive upgrade options, and an emphasis on free exploration."
The central hook of Mortal Shell was adorning your character in the forms and fighting styles of other warriors via Shells. Mortal Shell 2 is obviously building on that idea, but there seems to be a markedly greater focus on the world around you, with the devs teasing "more than 60 dungeons" to explore. That alone, quite frankly, already sounds bigger than the entirety of the first game.
Very importantly, Mortal Shell also looks brutal as all hell. Our Harbinger is killing dudes with other dudes, bludgeoning folks to death with their own tongues, shotgunning entire rows of miscreants, and just overall taking a sword to the squishy bits of countless horrors. Mortal Shell 2 has a bit of a Texas vibe so far: everything is big. Mouths, teeth, tongues, snails, axes. Waiter, another grisly Soulslike RPG, please, I haven't had enough.
