Mortal Shell

Mortal Shell is a third-person action role-playing game focused on melee combat, where players control one of several "shell" characters with different playstyles.

The game was developed by American indie developer Cold Symmetry. It was published by Playstack on 18 August 2020 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. "Rotting Autumn", an update adding new shell shades (skins), a new quest, a photo mode, and an alternative soundtrack by the Greek black metal band Rotting Christ, was released in October 2020.

The developers created Mortal Shell as they thought there was a gap in the market for video games evoking deeper emotional experiences. They were influenced by the 2011 game Dark Souls, similarly creating a setting with a dark atmosphere and populated with characters giving players cryptic information, and designing gameplay based around challenging melee combat, but still intended to change things up and create their own take on the concept. While some changes to the Dark Souls formula were creatively driven, such as giving players only a limited amount of consumable health items to encourage use of the health-leeching mechanic, compared to Dark Souls' Estus flasks, other changes came from the limitations of being a smaller developer: for example, they could not develop the same amount of armours, weapons and character builds, and instead developed four "shells" with different play styles and backstories.

Mortal Shell received "generally favorable reviews", according to the review aggregator website Metacritic, except on PlayStation 5, which received "mixed or average" reviews. On review aggregator OpenCritic, the game was recommended by 64% of critics. The game was nominated for Best Debut Game at The Game Awards 2020.

Reviewers frequently compared the game to playing Dark Souls for the first time.