Mortal Shell II Is #1 on Steam Before It Has Even Properly Launched

Mortal Shell II has jumped to #1 on Steam’s global best-sellers chart during advance access, with 23,000 concurrent players, strong reviews and Souls fans calling it a massive glow-up.

Mortal Shell II does not officially launch until August 20, but apparently nobody told Steam.

At the time I checked on August 18, Cold Symmetry's dark-fantasy action RPG was sitting at #1 on SteamDB's global top-sellers chart by revenue, ahead of Counter-Strike 2 and Apex Legends. The reason people are already playing is the $59.99/€59.99 Devout Edition, which includes up to 72 hours of advance access; the standard game launches at $49.99/€49.99.

And this is not just pre-release hype disappearing into wishlists. SteamDB recorded a peak of 23,008 concurrent players today, with around 22,000 playing at points during the evening. Nearly 1,900 user reviews have already been logged, about 85% positive, giving the advance-access release a Very Positive reception.

For perspective, the original Mortal Shell peaked at only 1,931 concurrent Steam players after its Steam release. That comparison is not total lifetime players or total sales across platforms, but purely Steam concurrency. Even with that limitation, the sequel has already reached more than ten times the original game's Steam peak before its standard launch date.

That is one hell of a sequel glow-up.

The weird part is that a lot of these players did not even like the first game

The original Mortal Shell had good ideas. Possessing dead warriors instead of choosing traditional classes was clever, its hardening mechanic was genuinely different, and the world looked fantastic. But its Steam reception eventually settled into Mixed territory, with SteamDB currently tracking roughly 67.5% positive reviews. Players frequently complained about clunky movement, confusing environments and combat that felt heavier than it needed to.

That makes the reaction to Mortal Shell II more interesting. During the open beta, PC Gamer highlighted a player who basically summed up a surprisingly common response: “I didn't like the first game, but the sequel plays SOOOO much better.” The beta itself was downloaded 250,000 times in a single weekend, and Cold Symmetry said it immediately began using feedback to fix bugs and tighten the final game.

SteamDB ultimately recorded more than 5,600 beta reviews, 91.4% of them positive. That is a substantial sample for something players did not even have to buy.

Official release trailer

Cold Symmetry's official trailer showing the expanded world, Shells and considerably more aggressive combat.

They committed Soulslike heresy: the stamina bar is gone

This is probably the decision people are arguing about most.

There is no traditional stamina meter in Mortal Shell II. You can sprint, attack and dodge without watching a green bar slowly decide whether your character is still physically capable of moving their legs. Cold Symmetry confirms that combat is completely unrestricted by stamina and is instead built around breaking enemy posture, landing critical attacks and generating Resolve through successful melee combat. Resolve powers special attacks and other abilities.

For a Soulslike, removing stamina is almost sacrilegious. Stamina management has been part of the genre's basic language since Demon's Souls. Unsurprisingly, r/MortalShell has been arguing about whether unlimited stamina makes the game too easy. Some players worry that endless dodging encourages spam; others say removing it is exactly why combat finally feels fast and aggressive.

The important thing is that reviewers who have finished the game generally do not think removing stamina turned it into easy mode. Enemies are more aggressive, while Resolve rewards players for staying in the fight rather than circling a boss waiting for a meter to refill. WayTooManyGames specifically noted that unlimited stamina does not remove the difficulty because enemies apply enough pressure to punish careless aggression.

Personally, I like the decision. If every Soulslike copies the same stamina, bonfire, corpse-run and dodge-roll formula forever, we are eventually just going to be playing Dark Souls wearing increasingly elaborate fake moustaches.

Mortal Shell II keeps the heavy impact of the original while making combat significantly faster. Image: Cold Symmetry / Playstack.

The Shell system finally feels like the main event

The idea behind Mortal Shell has always been brilliant: your real character, the Harbinger, can possess the bodies of fallen warriors. Those bodies become your classes.

The sequel expands this to eight playable Shells, each with its own abilities and upgrade paths. Cold Symmetry's official site confirms all eight, while reviewers describe radically different options ranging from heavily armored tanks to stealth-focused fighters.

One Shell, Proxima, can use a hook to pull enemies toward her or launch herself toward enemies too large to move. Another is built around stealth. Another can absorb punishment in heavy armor. GamesRadar found one Shell whose method of restoring health involves eating a human heart, which feels like an unnecessarily dramatic alternative to drinking a health potion, but I respect the commitment.

There are also 16 weapons, sidearms including firearms, Tarstones that modify attacks and individual Shell skill trees. Windows Central praised the number of combinations available between Shell abilities, weapons and upgrades, while GamesRadar found the system deep enough that certain builds can actually become too powerful and break the intended difficulty curve.

That last part is worth watching after launch. Being able to discover an absurdly strong build is fun. Accidentally turning a terrifying boss into an HR complaint is less ideal.

The world is no longer a maze designed by someone who hates you

Cold Symmetry says the sequel moves toward an interconnected open world designed to encourage free exploration while remaining deliberately compact. The studio specifically says it wants to reward curiosity without wasting the player's time.

That addresses one of the original game's biggest complaints. Windows Central's Michael Hoglund compared the improvement to jumping from Dark Souls II to Dark Souls III, praising clearer landmarks, huge connected areas and side paths that regularly lead to weapons, Shells and secrets rather than empty dead ends.

GamesRadar had a similar reaction and called the sequel “the best Soulslike I've played since” FromSoftware's latest work. Its review praised the faster combat and exploration but did find flaws: the cinematic camera can misbehave near walls, some abilities are poorly balanced, and the optional Nightfall mode can make navigating dark environments more irritating than difficult.

Critics are much more enthusiastic this time

The critic numbers are unusually strong for a Soulslike made outside FromSoftware.

At the time of checking, Metacritic lists Mortal Shell II at 84/100 from 38 critic reviews. OpenCritic has it at roughly 85, with about 91% of critics recommending it, placing it around the top few percent of games tracked by the site.

GamesRadar gave it 4/5 and called it one of the year's biggest surprises. Windows Central described it as a reinvention of the original with real franchise potential. The Outerhaven gave it 4.5/5, while the r/Games review thread is currently filled with scores in the 8–9.5 range.

Not everyone agrees. Some lower-scoring reviews criticize pacing, bugs and the sheer number of systems being layered together. OpenCritic includes criticism that the sequel can become overly ambitious, with mechanics occasionally competing instead of fitting neatly together. So this is not a situation where every reviewer suddenly discovered religion at the altar of Mortal Shell.

But the consensus is dramatically better than it was around the first game.

Souls players are noticing

The most interesting conversations right now are not really asking whether the game is good. They are asking how Cold Symmetry improved this much.

A current r/soulslikes thread sharing FightinCowboy's review is full of players saying the footage has moved the game from “maybe later” to launch-day territory. FightinCowboy, one of the better-known creators covering Souls and action RPGs, gave it 5/5, calling it a huge step up from the original and saying the $50 price made it an easy day-one recommendation for him.

FightinCowboy: Mortal Shell II – A Monumental Glow-Up

That is the review I would embed rather than stacking three YouTube videos together. Put it here, after readers already understand what changed, and it gives them a long-form player's perspective instead of interrupting the beginning of the article with another trailer.

Reddit reaction is still mixed enough to be useful. Some Souls veterans remain suspicious of the missing stamina meter. Others who played the beta say it gave combat a speed and freedom the original desperately needed. In the game's own subreddit, players reacting to its review scores pointed out that an 85–86 OpenCritic result is extremely strong for a Soulslike outside FromSoftware.

And unlike launch marketing, these people have spent months actively trying to break the game through the beta.

Even the physical edition sold out

There is another indicator that demand did not appear out of nowhere. Cold Symmetry's PS5 Revered Edition, which includes a physical disc, steelcase, art book and prints, is already listed by the studio as sold out in most territories.

GamesRadar reported that demand exceeded the developer's expectations and that preorders disappeared across multiple retailers. That became its own mini-discussion because physical game collectors are currently worried about the industry's steady movement toward digital-only releases.

There is one important reality check

Calling Mortal Shell II Steam's #1 seller does not mean we know exactly how many copies it has sold.

Valve does not publish live unit-sales numbers for individual games. SteamDB's global top-sellers list ranks products by revenue, and the ranking changes constantly. The game is also currently selling a more expensive Devout Edition because that is the version providing advance access.

Likewise, the current Steam review score mostly represents people willing to pay extra to play early. That audience is naturally more enthusiastic than the entire market may be after August 20.

What we can say is already impressive enough: it is currently Steam's highest-grossing product, more than 23,000 people have played simultaneously, almost 2,000 advance-access reviews have arrived, a quarter-million people downloaded its beta in one weekend, critics are averaging in the mid-80s and its physical collector's edition has sold out across much of the world.

Cold Symmetry may have just pulled off the sequel every indie studio wants

The original Mortal Shell was not a disaster. It sold more than a million copies across platforms over time and built enough of an audience to justify another game. But it always felt like an impressive idea fighting against the limits of a small team's first attempt.

Mortal Shell II increasingly looks like the version of that idea Cold Symmetry wanted to make all along: eight Shells instead of a handful, a real interconnected world, far more build variety, firearms sitting beside medieval weapons, faster combat and enough confidence to remove one of the genre's most sacred mechanics entirely.

Personally, that is why this launch interests me more than another indie suddenly hitting a huge sales number. The exciting part is not simply that Mortal Shell II is #1 on Steam today. Rankings change.

It is that a small studio released a flawed but interesting game, listened to what people hated about it, kept the weird ideas that made it different and came back six years later with something players who disliked the original are now recommending.

That is exactly what a sequel is supposed to do.

Mortal Shell II launches normally on August 20 for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. Devout Edition advance access is live now.