How’s your autumn going? Mine’s fine so far, I’ve switched back to hot beverages, as much as every cell in my being screams to ask for ice. But I reckon that sounds better than the autumn Mortal Shell 2 is having, given the name of the Soulslike’s next seasonal update: Rotten Autumn. Sounds bad! In practice, however, it’s quite an expansive sounding update that’s already out.
For starters, each shell has new shells to customise yourself with, a few of which can be seen in the trailer below. I’m particularly fond of the one that’s just an incredibly veiny guy wearing a jock strap and a metal pumpkin for a helmet. Interestingly, the game now has a new alternative soundtrack you can pop on, composed by Rotting Christ’s Sakis Tolis. Hopefully that means something to the metalheads as it means diddly squat to me.
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There are 15 new dungeons to make your way through, some of which look to be quite vibey and a touch platformy. You’ll be able to find 10 new tarstones, as well as a sheep specific one, whatever the hell that means. For the musically inclined there’s also an Impervious Lute skin, plus the addition of more lute tracks. Nightmode now has new lighting presents, and there’s overkill graphics settings to boot, with the inclusion of a photo mode to capture all of that gory goodness. And lastly, outside of some more polishing and bug fixes, “the ghost of a lost Shell haunts the land and offers cryptic notes.” Sure!
This is the second big update for the game since it launched in August, the last of which added in an experimental mode focused on reactive enemy scaling. Mortal Shell 2 has been quite well-liked over here as well, with Jeremy assigning it the coveted Bestest Bests badge and writing, “Yes, plenty of Soulslikes feature excellent dungeons, but Mortal Shell 2’s feel like they might have been pirated as a “top 100 maps” package back in 1998, which is both a sincere compliment and a massive upgrade from the confusing levels of the first game. They are, in many ways, reminiscent of what John Carmack and John Romero might have whipped up at the height of their collaborative years, if only Soulslikes had been a thing back then.”