While Soulslike Mortal Shell 2 doesn’t feature traditional difficulty modes, developers

Cold Symmetry have included a set of special items that let you tweak the challenge to your liking.

As someone who just got back from a three-day cycle trip with friends who coasted up the hills on bikes fitted with fancy 12-speed rear cassettes loaded with extra, larger gear cogs, while I huffed and puffed on my 11-speed, this is an approach to difficulty I both recognise and envy.

In Mortal Shell 2, you step into the soon-to-be-bloodsoaked shoes of The Harbinger, a warrior trying to track down a sacred egg that’s been stolen from the Undermether. On your journey, you will discover the ‘shells’ of dead warriors which you can then adopt, unlocking new play styles and abilities.

In addition to the shells, though, Cold Symmetry have included several items that also alter the game and its world, granting you abilities that make the game easier, or, alternatively, significantly harder.

The Slayer Seal, as Cold Symmetry explain in a video on Bluesky, “lets you regain resolve and health by executing your enemies with powerful riposte attacks”. Not only does this reward aggressive play, but it makes your character behave a little like the Doom Slayer in Doom (2016), where remaining in the thick of combat would let you perform melee executions that refilled your health bar.

There is a cost to using the Slayer Seal, however: you can’t gain achievements. If our world had any justice (and worked like Mortal Shell 2), then my friends with their fancy rear cassettes wouldn’t have been able to save their daily rides on Strava.

If you’re looking for more of a challenge, then you should instead seek out the Gloombound Flame. If you can find this candle and take it to a place called Marrow Keep, you can relight a brazier that summons a character called Thestus. Talking to them, you can switch Mortal Shell 2 to Night Mode, turning off the sun and activating a set of new challenges. Yes, there are additional rewards to be earned, but you will also face new events, NPCs, and dungeons.

There are other ways you can vary the challenge, too, that are less cut and dry than turning off achievements or switching off the sun. As well as the Slayer Seal, there are others that tweak core mechanics within the game. For instance, the Untarnished Seal is what you use if you want a more traditional parry option for melee. However, if you find timing deflections is more than you can manage, you can seek out Vatra’s Seal, which allows you temporarily harden your shield against attacks – effectively giving you an all over body shield. If you opt for the latter, you need to keep an eye out for a harden meter which can run out, leaving you extra vulnerable to attacks.

While I am a fan of straight up traditional difficulty modes, I am enjoying seeing more and more developers embrace ways of letting you adjust challenge to your taste. Giving players the ability to refill your health without actually making enemies weaker, for instance, seems like a canny way to help players without radically changing the balance of the game.

After all, I recently bought an electric bike pump because I can’t be arsed to lug the footpump back and forth to the bike locker every time I get a flat tire. (I’m increasingly realising that there may not be a 1-to-1 comparison between Mortal Shell 2 and cycling.)