Dark Souls and the like allow players to allocate stats and produce builds in abundance, which offers replayability and experimentation with all resources that it has available. Mortal Shell, rather, restricts players to static builds as part of its particular Shells. This certainly sets Mortal Shell apart from its Souls-like counterparts, and is executed well in its first installment, but Mortal Shell leaves itself wide open for sequel potential as a result of how small in scope its initial entry is.
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Mortal Shell’s Sequel Should Concentrate on Its Scope
Mortal Shell’s grim environs are relatively quaint, even if they are designed like intricate labyrinths with the intent to disorient players. Because players need to race Glands back to The Old Prisoner in Fallgrim, the smaller size of each area actually becomes a benefit. However, a sequel to Mortal Shell could either choose to add more areas of the same size, or make areas larger in scope with more of a nuanced level design in place.
All four Shells in Mortal Shell – Harros, the Vassal; Tiel, the Acolyte; Solomon, the Scholar; and Eredrim the Venerable – have their unique stats and players may select them at their preference, but replayability inevitably becomes stale once players have discovered their desired Shell and armament combination, especially if there is already a meta established that trumps any other Shell and armament combination. Mortal Shell’s sequel could add more Shells in quantity, but also make them more niche in terms of their combat capabilities.
Some Shells, for instance, could be oriented around sorceries and reel the franchise away from pure melee builds. Mortal Shell features an appropriate number of weapons with regard to how many Shells there are, but the only dynamic implementation and preference reduces it to which weapon pairs best to which Shell.
Weapons like The Martyr’s Blade are most efficient in the hands of Tiel, whose exceptional stamina stats compensate for how much stamina is consumed from heavier armaments. Meanwhile, lighter weapons such as the Hammer and Chisel more effective in the hands of Eredrim, whose exceptional health stats compensate for less immediate damage.
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Mortal Shell Lacks a Clear Identity
Upon its first release, Mortal Shell was clearly identifiable as a Souls-like with definitive features to set it apart from FromSoftware titles. Rather, Mortal Shell’s The Virtuous Cycle DLC created an important distinction that bridges another genre gap.
The Virtuous Cycle DLC introduced a roguelite gameplay mode that differs vastly from Mortal Shell and the upgraded Mortal Shell: Enhanced Edition. Mortal Shell’s sequel could now either follow its original path as a Souls-like, or its new path as a roguelite. Of course, Mortal Shell’s sequel could ultimately turn out to be either or neither, but it needs to confidently cement its genre in order to develop as a franchise.
Either way, Mortal Shell seems to have left a lot of room to grow as an IP and did not bite off more than it could chew in its first entry. Because of this, Mortal Shell can hopefully expand from its competent foundations and provide players with a massive scope and reinforced replayability as a focus.
Mortal Shell is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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