Mortal Shell II launches on August 20 for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series. Cold Symmetry stripped out the stamina bar, which happens to be the very piece that has structured combat in the genre since Demon’s Souls. It was a risky bet. The first reviews, out on August 17 alongside early access, say it paid off.
The studio did not settle for tweaking its formula. Eight Shells instead of four, more than sixty dungeons, one seamless world. And an 85 on OpenCritic where the first game topped out at 76.
An August 20 release, with the door already open
The official date is Thursday, August 20, 2026, on Steam, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. The standard edition sits at 49.99 €, ten euros below the usual price of a big single-player game.
Anyone who bought the Devout edition at 59.99 € has been playing since the 17th. Three days early, plus eight Obsidian skins for the Shells. That gap explains why reviews are already out while the game has not launched for everyone.
Playstack publishes, Cold Symmetry develops. The same pair as in 2020, on a game carrying twice the content of the first one.
Removing the stamina bar does not remove the constraint
This is the real story. In a classic soulslike, the green gauge decides everything. It sets how many swings you can chain, when you are allowed to dodge, and above all when you have to back off and breathe. Take it away and you are touching the metronome of the genre.
Cold Symmetry built something else in its place. Combat revolves around enemy posture, which you break to land a critical hit. You strike, you reposition, and nothing asks you to wait for a bar to refill.
The constraint simply changed shape. Every attack, every dodge, every skill keeps its recovery frames. You can swing again as soon as your character allows it, which is not the same as doing whatever you please. A mistimed dodge leaves you wide open, exactly as before.
The result reads as a change of tempo more than a change of difficulty. This is still a game that punishes, but it punishes how you read a fight rather than how you manage a resource. Players who found stamina artificial will enjoy it. Those who saw it as the heart of the genre will need time to adjust.
Mortal Shell II doubles its content: eight Shells, sixty dungeons
Shells are those husks of forgotten warriors you possess to switch playstyle. The first game offered four. This one has eight, each with its own abilities.
Around them sit more than sixty dungeons and an open world the publisher calls spacious yet deliberately compact. Every zone connects to a shared airborne landscape, which avoids carving the game into separate levels. Exploration is free, and Playstack keeps stressing that point.
The beta had already sent a signal. More than 600,000 downloads, six million combined views across YouTube, Twitch and short-form video, a 93% positive rating. For a studio this size, that is a comfortable base going into launch.
85 on OpenCritic, nine points above the first game
As of August 17, Mortal Shell II sat at 83 out of 100 on Metacritic after thirty reviews, and 85 out of 100 on OpenCritic after thirty-five, with 91% of critics recommending it. The first Mortal Shell landed at 76. A nine-point gap between two games from the same studio is rare.
In detail, Shacknews gives 9 out of 10 and calls it a sequel that fixes every flaw of the first game. Giant Bomb awards 4.5 out of 5 and describes a fun-forward soulslike that favours flexibility and variety over raw difficulty. Game Lodge climbs to 9.5 out of 10, Sirus Gaming to 9, DualShockers and Zoomg to 8.5, IGN Spain to 8.
Several reviews reach for the same comparison, Lies of P. The implication being the best soulslike outside FromSoftware since that game. The line has become a critical cliché, but it does set the expected level.
What it is worth when you come from Diablo 4 or Path of Exile 2
Our readers spend most of their time in hack and slash games. The question is not whether Mortal Shell II is a good soulslike, but what it offers someone coming off a Diablo 4 season or a race on Path of Exile 2.
The common ground jumps out once stamina is gone. In an ARPG, nothing stops you from chaining skills, only cooldowns and resources hold you back. That is exactly the model Cold Symmetry has moved to. A Diablo regular will find a familiar rhythm, where the classic soulslike often felt restrained.
Where the two part ways is in reading a fight. An ARPG forgives mistakes because you soak the damage, here a missed dodge costs you straight away. Eight Shells play something like classes, with a far lighter investment than a full build to assemble.
As for the calendar, the window is tight. This one arrives a few days before gamescom 2026, which will soak up attention from August 25, and a week after the State of Play devoted to Phantom Blade Zero. Fans of the genre also have Elden Ring on Switch 2 on the 28th. August is a busy month for anyone who enjoys taking a beating.
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