After a year of exclusivity on the Epic Games store, gothic action-adventure Mortal Shell is seeing its PC availability extended to Steam and GOG, and to celebrate, developer Cold Symmetry is making a new set of DLC free to all owners for a limited time.
Called The Virtuous Cycle, the DLC adds a roguelike mode on top of the main game’s Dark Souls-like experience. As players might expect from the genre, that means a randomised world to explore, respawning from scratch upon death, but with upgradable skills to better weather the challenge.
Cold Symmetry promise “125+ abilities” to unlock, and a new playable shell – Mortal Shell’s answer to character classes, with the new one, Hadern, focusing on dagger mastery. The DLC also introduces a new transforming weapon – Axatana, “a manipulable hilt of two blades”.
The Virtuous Cycle arrives tomorrow (August 18), alongside Mortal Shell’s release on Steam and GOG. The expansion will be free to download for all owners until August 23. This includes players who already have the game via Epic, or those who own the console version on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, or Xbox One.
Following the free weekend, The Virtuous Cycle will be available to buy for £6.99 ($7.99/ €6.99).
The base game scored three out of five in its NME Review, with Jon Bailes saying that “Once Mortal Shell gets into its stride, its dynamic combat and unfussy upgrade systems start to shine” but that its “lack of variety and reluctance to depart from the Dark Souls formula ensures that it never truly inspires.”
Elsewhere, players of Rainbow Six Siege can expect to see the game’s competitive ranks reworked, while CD Projekt Red has revealed the next patch for Cyberpunk 2077 will improve the game’s minimap and make re-allocating skill points easier.
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