Mortal Shell II Reviews: What Critics and Players Say

Critic scores at a glance

Most outlets title their coverage “Mortal Shell 2 Review,” while the official name is Mortal Shell II. The review embargo lifted in launch week: IGN published on August 17, 2026, Kotaku and Push Square on August 18, and Playstack's official Steam news post on August 20 confirmed the embargo had lifted. Metacritic lists the platforms as PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X, published by Playstack under the genre Action RPG.

Kotaku publishes reviews without a numeric score and its write-up is positive overall. Video reviews from Skill Up, Fextralife, and gameranx also delivered positive verdicts without attaching a number in the captured transcripts. Playtime estimates cluster around 25–30 hours: IGN cites a “25-30 hour quest,” Push Square took 30 hours to roll credits, Skill Up estimates at least 25–30 hours on a first playthrough, Fextralife finished in 30–31 hours (about 35 with everything), and Iron Pineapple's full playthrough took roughly 30 hours.

What critics agree on

Four themes repeat across the launch-week verdicts: combat, buildcraft, world design, and the step up from the original. All points below are the named outlets' opinions, not objective facts.

• Combat. Skill Up calls the combat “fantastic,” praising ranged weapons and abilities integrated into the melee loop through a resolve meter. IGN's video review notes stamina is gone entirely — landing melee attacks fills the resolve you spend on sidearms and shell abilities. Both count eight melee weapons and eight ranged sidearms with distinct movesets.
• Shell buildcraft. Skill Up describes the eight shells as “effectively character classes,” each with differing health pools, one or two active abilities, and a unique passive mechanic. IGN adds that points spent on shells can be refunded and reallocated for free. Fextralife highlights tar stones — equippable items with around 10 slots — as a third layer of customization.
• World and exploration. Fextralife calls it “hands-down the best world design of any Souls-like game I have played to date.” IGN describes a dense reimagining of Fallgrim where beacon checkpoints open their own mini-dungeons. gameranx says “it does always feel like there's a cool new thing around every corner.”
• Visuals and art direction. Skill Up, reviewing a PC build in Unreal Engine 5, reports “surprisingly good” performance. gameranx praises art direction that blends heavy-metal, medieval gothic, and H.R. Giger-inspired strangeness.
• A far improved sequel. IGN: “besides being bigger, Mortal Shell 2 is also better in almost every way.” Push Square: “by all accounts, a far improved sequel.” Fextralife: “absolutely a step in the right direction versus Mortal Shell 1.”

“Mortal Shell 2's expansion into a large scale action-RPG is mostly successful, and all of its new ideas are great ones.” — IGN, Mortal Shell 2 Review (8/10)

“You should play Mortal Shell II because it might, before your very blistered eyes, be conjuring something from a nether dimension with too many consonants to feasibly pronounce. The reward for the experience is the experience itself...” — Kotaku

Where critics push back

The recurring criticisms are technical issues, balance and difficulty, resource pacing, and variety. All are opinions attributed to the outlets below.

• Technical rough edges. IGN notes “rough edges, mostly weird technical things.” Fextralife counted close to a dozen bugs and a couple of crashes across its playthrough and concluded “I wouldn't call this a very polished game.” Skill Up mentions occasional micro-stutter, ghosting, and muddy interior lighting.
• Balance and difficulty. IGN flags balance issues “especially towards the end of this 25-30 hour quest.” Skill Up found the bosses “disappointingly trivial” and calls Mortal Shell II “one of, if not the most accessible Souls-likes you can play.” Fextralife says balancing “kind of feels all over the place,” with cheesy builds able to first-try most bosses. gameranx warns of enemy attacks that one-shot you and of frequent falls.
• Resource pacing and story. Kotaku notes scarce currency and upgrade materials in the early-to-mid game, which pushes players into grinding. Skill Up felt the story “didn't feel like much of it really led anywhere.” IGN calls the overall story “a bit of a cryptic mess.”
• Variety. Fextralife found enemy variety weak across a stretch of the second half. gameranx says many enemies feel similar to engage, and that sticking with one melee weapon gets stale because movesets stay simple.

“Mortal Shell 2 is a soulslike that cuts to the chase... It loses steam a little towards the end, with some irritating backtracking, but overall this is a brilliant new addition to the genre and, by all accounts, a far improved sequel.” — Push Square (PS5)

Steam reception

On Steam, Mortal Shell II's user reviews are “Very Positive” as of August 21, 2026: 85% of the 2,243 English-language user reviews are positive. Metacritic's user reviews were “not available for this game yet” at the same collection point, so Steam is the main player-sentiment signal so far.

Playstack's official Steam news post “Now Available Worldwide!” (August 20, 2026) said: “The review embargo has also lifted, and we've been thrilled by the response so far,” adding that the community “has played a huge role in shaping the game” and that the team is “reading feedback across Steam, Discord, Reddit.” Fextralife noted a substantial day-one balancing patch it had only partially played, and Iron Pineapple — whose 68-minute playthrough was sponsored, not a review — said the version it played had since been rebalanced, nerfed, and bug-fixed.

Community threads echo the professional consensus, with the caveat that these are community claims captured from search snippets. The r/Games review thread summarizes “fast, dynamic combat, tactical Shell system, and flexible builds” as “an enjoyable experience.” An r/soulslikes completion analysis calls the combat “more traditional and closer to the older Souls games.”

The bottom line

The launch-week consensus is positive: Mortal Shell II is repeatedly described as a bigger, better sequel whose combat, shell-based buildcraft, and exploration carry it — with technical quirks, late-game balance, and an easy-leaning difficulty curve as the recurring caveats. Skill Up highlights the game's built-in difficulty levers, the Slayer Seal “easy mode” item and an internal night mode that toughens enemies, as part of why he calls it “one of, if not the most accessible Souls-likes you can play.”

Treat the specifics as launch-week impressions: reviews were written against launch-week builds, and the official announcement says community feedback continues to shape the game after launch. No score here is our own — every number and verdict above is attributed to the outlet that published it.

Next steps: read our Mortal Shell II release date overview, the shells guide, and the weapons guide, or check the Steam page directly.