Action RPG Mortal Shell opens its beta due to player demand

Citing "overwhelming demand," the development team of upcoming action-RPG Mortal Shell has decided to turn its previously closed beta into an open one. The beta is now freely available on the Epic Games store. Previously available only to a select few, the beta includes "the outskirts of Fallgrim and the Abandoned Chamber," whatever those are.

Mortal Shell is a clearly Dark Souls-inspired action-RPG that attracted attention earlier this year for its quite stunning visual design. The followup gameplay trailer kept us caring because it did show some fairly compelling material. The game itself has a focus on all kinds of dark fantasy terrors, talking about sanity-blasting horrors and resilience in the face of a broken world. "Your path is guarded by adversaries, devoted to inscrutable gods," says the game description, "Behold creatures both pitiable and grotesque and muster your courage and face them down." That honestly just kind of sounds like opening social media.

Our James Davenport just got a look at the game a few days ago, and here's what he had to say. "Mortal Shell is a Dark Souls concentrate, a much denser, more challenging reconfiguration of the Souls-like that jams more traps, ambushes, and intense duels into a single arena than the whole of the Undead Burg. It's a lot. Too much, sometimes."

Thrilling! You can watch James' full gameplay above, read his impressions here, or check out a demo for yourself on the Epic Games store.

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Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.