Harbingers,
Since our full launch last week, we have been overwhelmed by the response and all the experiences you've shared with the team.
Today marks the first major patch for Mortal Shell II, bringing new content alongside extensive fixes, performance improvements, combat refinements, and much more.
Among the additions are new Fragile Tarstones, a new way to respec your Shell, changes to the Glimpses and Tarcores economy, and new beacons and exploration adjustments that make navigating the world better paced. Ripostes have received a full scaling pass, numerous bosses and weapons have been refined, and we’ve made extensive fixes and optimizations across the game.
The full breakdown is below, but be wary that there may be spoilers present in this changelog.
New Items
Glimpse Stone - Wears down as you defeat enemies, then breaks into Glimpses
Egon's Stone - Revive at the entrance of a dungeon at the cost of its durability, and when it breaks it prevents Gloom loss for that death.
Justicar’s Stone and Gloombound Stone are now fragile, have increased passive effects and added on break effects. Fragile Tarstones are not unique and can be found multiple times during a playthrough. Existing copies of Jusicar’s and Gloombound have been converted to Fragile.
Certain enemies now drop the new fragile Tarstones, several dungeons now reward them, and Merrick has taken an interest in selling them.
Economy
Glimpses and Tarcores are no longer finite resources, allowing all shells and Tarstones to be upgraded in a single playthrough.
Mether's Severance is a shell respec item which can be given to Zhirelle, the shell keeper. In exchange she will sever your bond with a Shell, resetting it and granting you all spent glimpses back.
Tarstones now yield more tarcores when broken. If your save already has leveled up Tarstones, you’ll find a compensatory cache of Tarcores in your inventory.
Tarstones and Mether’s Severance can be purchased from Merrick and will restock occasionally when progressing through the game.
Exploration
We’ve improved exploration flow, while adding new secrets for you to discover.
New Beacons have appeared throughout Fainweald and Mammon, but are only active during the day.
Two new cosmetic rewards can be found in the world once completing certain questlines.
New items have been added to the world, and some problematic chests have been reset.
Egon's Stone can revive you at a dungeon's entrance when you die inside it, and spares your Gloom for that death when it breaks.
A teleporter now appears in one dungeon after the Grisha pit fight, removing the walk back entirely.
You still haven’t found the second Trollweed.
Rewards and Economy
Merrick's stock has expanded, with Glimpse Stones, Egon's Stones and Tarcores once you have gathered enough Ova. The Collector now carries Tarcores as well.
Dungeon reward chests across the first two regions have been revised, reward placement in Mammon has been updated, and missing rewards in the arena dungeons restored. Some reward chests in the world have been replaced with straightforward pickups.
Additional rewards, including Glimpses, added to the gloom siphon.
Mini-Beacons no longer award a Glimpse.
Weapons, Items and Balance
Obsidian Hammer has had a full balance pass and now hits substantially harder.
The Great Martyr's Blade deals more damage. It was a pity it didn’t actually make it in the last patch, to make up for it, it’s even stronger now.
Heavy weapons in general have had a poise and damage pass.
Salvaged Trebuchaxe: Tarred Fragment has been redesigned. It was simultaneously overpowered and broken.
Axatana: its weapon ability now grants invulnerability frames and inflicts Fragile stacks, and its combat Tarstone active triggers correctly.
Weltcap is stronger in both its active and passive forms.
Base aggression and disengage ranges have been retuned across the game. Fixed enemies ignoring you while walking to a patrol point, retreating unreasonably far when unable to reposition, and being unable to attack while locked onto a different target.
Fixed Tarstones continuing to gather experience after reaching maximum level, and missing tooltips on a number of Tarstones.
Environmental status hazards have been reworked, including a new handler for Stasis.
Shells
Eredrim: Shoulder Bash no longer leaves your primary weapon permanently stowed.
Proxima: the same fix applies to Biosampler, she can no longer become stuck in her hook shot, and an arm that was being pulled unnaturally straight has been corrected.
Genessa: dashes have been fixed, including the corrupted version.
Losing a Shell no longer breaks her paired animations, and her Intangible upgrade now works during grab attacks
Fixed astral copies drifting away from their intended target.
Doubles select targets better and switch targets when their original dies, rather than standing idle.
Smert: can destroy projectiles while in permanent fight stance.
Gragu: the Heart of Vatra no longer trails after you in sheep form, and his helmet uses the correct material.
Blood now marks Shell skins correctly across the roster.
Fixed Shell summon interactions, and Tarstone summons occasionally targeting you.
Bosses and Minibosses
Most bosses in the game have received a general polish pass and bugfixes.
The Monolith in particular has received a broad combat polish and bugfix pass. Its laser and spin attacks now have more consistent, readable timings and do not spam (this was a bug). We’ve also refined animation timings, adjusted bad hitboxes and fixed a nasty bug which was causing it to deal double damage on certain hits.
Zmey’s Tail grab no longer simultaneously takes both the Shell and Harbinger from 100-0. We heard some of you don’t like getting one-shotted, for whatever reason. In night mode it’s ON, though.
Zmey’s Ring Waves align to the ground properly and his elemental stomps have new effects.
The Lost Child no longer launches you, or himself, across the arena. He now uses the finished walk animation rather than the placeholder that shipped, his bite anticipation has been retimed, his riposte no longer wobbles as it begins, and a rare case of endless blood effects has been fixed.
Droeg, the Conquerer has had his arena navigation repaired, his riposte alignment and physical hit reactions corrected, and a substantial visual pass over his fire and snowfall effects that also improve performance.
Sir Isaac, the Scholar-Prince has had his arena navigation repaired, a stray lunge removed from one second-phase attack, and his phase transition riposte fixed against a wall.
Hexapod deals considerably more splash damage with his area attack, can no longer interrupt his own shooting attack, and has had one attack retimed to be fairer. His arena is smaller and its beacon light is lit by default, which makes the fight far easier to read. He can no longer wedge himself into the environment during his dive.
Orrem was displaying the wrong name in game, which has been corrected. Stray effects have been removed from his death animations, the fire on his axe no longer flickers.
Orrem, the Reclaimed has had his attack and riposte alignment improved.
Malborn Offspring no longer interrupts his own sword throw, and will reliably pick his sword back up.
The Warden and Urrig, the Executioner have both been reworked, with retuned attacks, new ice attacks and corrected effects. Urrig's spin now gives a proper warning that it cannot be parried.
Vrannic, the Grand Illusionist has new projectile vfx trails.
Magdalena, the Lady of the Woods no longer rotates incorrectly during her charge.
Bloodcursed Lithopod no longer glitches when colliding with other enemies, no longer nudges you into the air when you are standing still, and has had its damage, turning and jump attacks retuned.
Tainted Vestige ranged attacks no longer miss without reason, and The Wandering Shepherd now teleports sensibly within his arena.
Bugs, Softlocks and Getting Stuck
Fixed many places you could become trapped.
Fixed getting stuck near the closed castle gates
Fixed getting stuck in a church in the opening region
Fixed getting stuck in a house in the sunken village dungeon, inside
Fixed getting stuck in Castigator's Keep by walking through a wall
Fixed getting stuck in the snow on the approach to Droeg's arena
Fixed getting stuck in a hole in the ground in Eredrim's castle jail
Collision holes, ground gaps and missing collision have been patched throughout the first two regions.
Softlocks and Lost Progress
Fixed a bug with Vatra’s Temple where players would be locked out permanently after exploring the area.
Fixed a potential crash and softlock during Lazlo's Rekindle.
Fixed a softlock when speaking to the barkeep after Gragu's death but before collecting him.
Fixed a softlock if you were struck while inside Hilga's Cauldron, and the interface failing to return when you climbed out.
Fixed declining the cutscene at a Shell unlock leaving you invisible and invulnerable until you restarted.
Objects and Interactables
Fixed an iron maiden that could trap you as it opened, a lift lever that snapped the lift back to its starting position, and a wooden lift that could kill you on the way up.
Fixed a chest that destroyed itself, several chests that became unreliable after loading a save, and offerings failing to register in a locked chest.
Fixed gates in the Temple of Vatra that could strand your Gloom somewhere you could not reach it, and corrupted gates that would not clear if approached from the sewers.
Fixed items in the opening region hidden inside collision, which made them impossible to pick up.
Fixed a ceiling collapse triggering at the wrong moment, and a light puzzle with two candles that had stopped being connected to it.
Sitting down (hopefully) no longer launches you into the sky, it never happened to us but we saw some of you go flying.
Encounters and Spawning
Fixed enemies visible before they had spawned in several encounters, and spawn triggers that did not cover the enemies they were meant to.
Fixed being able to lure Vellen, High Lord of Mammon out of his arena, and being able to interact with a traversal point during a boss fight.
Fixed resting at one late Beacon drawing enemies onto you, and mis-referenced spawners in a late encounter.
Fixed an infinite Ossinite farm, an exploit that allowed unlimited healing, and shield-carrying enemies becoming effectively immortal against one type of projectile.
Fixed personal items being unavailable until a restart if you had played the prologue.
The Wandering Shepherd's Sheep properly respawn when playing NG+.
We Found Out About the Grishas
Fixed a Grisha that respawned indefinitely in one dungeon, astral Grishas spawning embedded in the floor, and enemies becoming stuck on geometry. (rip Grishamancer)
The Grisha PP item active is now stronger, its passive spawning has been fixed, and its summon no longer displays attack warnings intended for enemies.
Parrying, Dodging and Ripostes
Ripostes have had a full pass.
Player riposte damage now scales with enemy health, so the damage keeps up properly with late game, NG+, and Night Mode.
Invulnerability windows are now consistent between ripostes, and last through to the end of the animation rather than expiring partway.
Many player riposte recoveries end sooner, so control returns to you faster.
Riposte animations across the entire enemy roster now behave when your back is to a wall, rather than sliding you through it.
Riposte damage is now calculated and applied by the riposte itself, which resolves cases where it applied twice or not at all.
Fixed Proxima's riposte alignment against The Silent Sester.
Enemy Tracking and Hit Detection
Enemy tracking and magnetism maximums have been restricted, and will continue to be adjusted on an individual basis in future patches.
Fixed projectiles that failed to register against enemy weak points, and sidearm projectiles choosing the wrong target.
Fixed brigand shield collision that could launch you into the air, and projectiles failing to appear in the shield.
Several enemies, including Lithopods, now align to sloped ground correctly, and dungeon champions now stand on the ground.
Fallen wooden bridges are now easier to hit, and destructible carts use better collision.
Fixed corrosion failing to apply after a projectile had been reused.
Story, Characters and Scenes
Characters no longer turn, stare, drift or fade at the wrong moment across a long list of scenes, including Rickart in The Search and Resignation, Eredrim in Immaculate Path, Tiel in The Bottle, and Vratko during his dance.
Fixed overlapping and skippable dialogue in several memories, and retimed voice and sound in The Vision, The Search and The Censer.
Fixed story moments taking too long to appear.
Milos no longer falls silent at random, and greets you properly before moving on.
Zhirelle's dialogue is now cleared before a memory begins.
Merrick, Vratko and Egon can no longer be interrupted while dying.
Franz's conversations now trigger in the correct order, and he returns to his crank after being interrupted.
Marigold no longer starts two conversations at once, and the barkeeper no longer speaks to you through the tavern wall.
Baghead can no longer be damaged, and his ending no longer unlocks early.
Grisha Hunters now hold their weapons, Grisha Pups have new reactions, and the Grisha Matron can be harmed by ranged weapons.
Larreth, the Brigand King now appears without his helmet, and his guards no longer vanish if you kill him first.
Ruk's greetings react to your progress, and his dialogue no longer remains on screen when you enter a boss fight.
Egon's interactions now refresh after offerings, and interaction problems with Gorf have been resolved.
Corrected a subtitle that did not match the recorded line in Ruk's dialogue about the Lost Child, along with a considerable number of typos and missing punctuation.
Interface and Map
Weapon level now appears in the inventory slot.
Fixed the map offering objectives you had already completed.
Fixed the camera key appearing blank in the launcher on mouse and keyboard, and the interact key ignoring your rebinding.
Fixed resetting "hide subtitles" to its default hiding the subtitles instead.
Fixed the Change Shade option disappearing after opening the Change Masks menu.
Fixed overlapping text in the Shell revive message in Simplified Chinese, long Tarstone names colliding with the temper notification, panels and icons overlapping at higher interface scales, and misaligned details on Mether's Breath.
Added a tutorial scale setting, with a separate one for console, and polished a number of tutorials.
Clearer colorblind setting descriptions, an updated open gate icon, and proper icons when a mask unlocks.
Audio
New riposte stingers, and restored missing riposte audio for the Bloodcursed Lithopod.
New sounds for Fragile Tarstones wearing down and breaking.
Enemies can now be given an audible warning for unparryable attacks.
Ambient sound no longer stacks when several sources overlap.
Village dance music no longer collapses to a single point as you approach.
You no longer continue bleating after transforming back from a sheep.
Reprocessed older voice recordings.
Added several missing sounds including the Marrow Keep elevator lever.
Fixed Lazlo's armor loop.
Fixed the saved audio device being selected at startup when it no longer exists.
New speaker presets.
Performance
Fewer enemies in some of the busiest areas, where the crowd was costing frame rate rather than adding difficulty. Spawners in the dense prison area have been rebuilt.
Fixed the significant hitch shortly after the shader compilation screen. That work now happens while you are still in the menu.
Fixed the frame rate drop when cleansing tar gates.
Fixed flickering textures.
Several rounds of dungeon lighting optimisation, and optimisation passes over Droeg's effects, the final boss arena, lightning, village buildings, stairs, books and library interiors.
The arrow volleys in the final siege no longer arrive all at once.
Reduced background work across weapons, hit detection and movement, returning a meaningful amount of frame time on console.
Improved rendering of destructible objects.
Fixed corrupted terrain in several places and rebuilt the affected landscapes.
Crashes and Stability
A substantial number of crash fixes, covering enemy spawning, audio, attribute changes, interface loading, save loading and shutdown.
Removed some settings that were implicated in graphics driver crashes, and added a crash diagnostics option.
Crash reports now carry considerably more context, which makes the crashes that remain much easier for us to locate.
Improved handling of Steam ownership checks, and updated to the current Steamworks release for better Steam Deck detection and controller support.
Options, Platforms and Controls
Increased Geometry Budgets, a new graphics option. Off by default, which uses less video memory; turn it on if you have memory to spare.
Frame generation has been reworked. It now applies after a reload rather than conflicting in real time, which the description states, and it no longer switches on before the world has finished loading. NVIDIA frame generation can now be selected on a much wider range of cards.
Switch Pro and Switch Pro 2 controllers are supported, with an option to swap their glyphs. Steam Deck and Steam Controller now display the correct buttons.
The game now defaults to your monitor's native resolution, and pauses when a system overlay opens.
Fixed issue with raytracing options not working as intended
Fixed post-process options that had no effect, and firing not working on some controllers.
Rumble now triggers correctly for riposte damage, held attacks, Beacon interactions and dungeon transitions, and has had a broad pass across sidearms, items and Shell abilities.
Miscellaneous
Known Issues
Thank you for playing, for your feedback, and for being on this journey with us!
- Cold Symmetry & Playstack Teams
