Mortal Trace

In the increasingly crowded Soulslike genre, a game's opening minutes need to do a lot of work. The good news for Mortal Shell 2 is its opening is superb, starting as well as it continues, and condensing the magic of its next 30-odd hours into a few minutes with aplomb. Read more

This sequel's expansion into a large scale action-RPG is mostly a successful one.

Mortal Shell 2 has a lot of tough enemies waiting to knock you out of your shell and stuff your carcass into a coffin. Many of them are terrifying because of their difficulty, ugliness, or both. Still, nothing compares to the greatest enemy developer Cold Symmetry made for the souls-like action-RPG: those gosh-dang bear traps. Danger lurks around every corner in this game. Walk here, and you might get ambushed by a rabid miner just itching to stab you with a pickaxe. Stand there, and you'll likely see a hulking beast sauntering over with death in their eyes. But the worst of it is when explori