Mortal Shell II Launched Today, and Critics Are Calling It One of the Best Soulslikes in Years

The headline change, the one nearly every review fixates on, is that Cold Symmetry threw out the stamina meter. That governor on aggression is one of the most sacred conventions in the entire soulslike genre, the thing that tells you when you are allowed to act, and Mortal Shell II simply removes it. You can sprint, swing, and press forward without the game quietly counting your budget in the background.

The effect, according to critics, is transformative: combat that feels fast and aggressive and closer to a character action game than a traditional Souls crawl, while the returning hardened stance keeps a defensive read-and-react discipline underneath the speed. It is the rare case of a sequel identifying the safe choice at its core and deliberately discarding it.

The other big expansion is the Shell system. You collect eight discoverable, class-based bodies and swap between them freely, building tank, stealth, or hybrid approaches, which gives the sequel a build-craft dimension the original only hinted at. Reviewers also singled out the interconnected world design as among the best exploration in the genre, with maps that fold back on themselves and reward curiosity.

It is not flawless. Critics noted camera problems in tight spaces, occasional hit-detection and animation rough edges, some balance wobble between Shells and weapons, and a minority felt the sheer scale of ambition meant the systems did not always cohere. Those notes pulled a few scores down, but the consensus held: this is a confident, standout entry, rough edges and all.

The soulslike genre has spent years accumulating imitators, most of them content to copy FromSoftware's homework. What makes Mortal Shell II notable is that it does the opposite: it takes the formula seriously enough to know exactly which rule was worth breaking, and it breaks it. A mid-budget studio cutting the stamina bar and being rewarded for it is the kind of result that other developers will study.

We reviewed Mortal Shell II at launch and landed at 8.4, in line with the critical consensus: one of the year's best soulslikes, well worth playing for anyone with an appetite for a dark, demanding, exploration-rich adventure. If you want to know where to go next in the genre, our ranked soulslike coverage is a good place to start.