Mortal Shell 2’s new update adds a dynamic difficulty level
Mortal Shell 2 is a superb game as is; in our Mortal Shell 2 review, we said it “..might just be the best Soulslike since Elden Ring,” and that still stands. However, developer Cold Symmetry has now released a meaty new patch which, amongst other things, adds an adaptive difficulty option to the game.
Cold Symmetry underlines that this is very much experimental so, potentially, it could go horribly, horribly wrong for your protagonist. But it’s designed to ensure that the game is challenging without being soul-destroyingly hard.
As Cold Symmetry puts it, “If you are winning, the game pushes back.. if you are struggling, the game gives ground.” It’ll adapt enemy strength accordingly, settling back to its default difficulty setting over time. However, if you keep kicking bottom, there’s no limit to how strong the bad guys can get.
“Keep clearing encounters without dying and enemies will scale well past the toughest the game was originally built to be, and they will keep climbing for as long as you keep winning,” Cold Symmetry explains on Mortal Shell 2’s Steam page. Ouch. On the plus side, if you’re losing badly, the game will adjust so that no single attack can kill you in one go.
Currently there’s no clue as to which direction the difficulty is going, but Cold Symmetry is working on adding some kind of visual cue. Adaptive difficulty aside, the game’s latest patch also adds in a host of bug fixes. You can find the full Mortal Shell 2 patch notes here.
Mortal Shell 2 is out now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.
