Mortal Shell is free on Epic

Last Friday, we could finally talk about Prime Gaming for March. Monday, Warhammer 40K: Darktide has a new update. Tuesday, Kojima did a Kojima thing by announcing a game’s release date at a festival typically about films and music, and Cities: Skylines is celebrating its 10th anniversary. Wednesday, Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop has a new update that several people have been waiting for. Thursday, I got to gush about history that isn’t often taught and maybe added that Ground of Aces has a new demo, as well as ZA/UM announcing its next game.

Right, moving on to the Epic Games Store for this week is an odd, tiring one that will be fun to try to keep concise. Not the World of Warships offering, titled Anniversary Party Favor you can pick up the Taishō period Yūbari (a Tier 4 Japanese cruiser), 1 port slot, a Japanese Commander and 3 skill points, 444K in credits, 44K Elite Commander XP, 4 Epic Permanent Camouflages, 4 Bonuses Containers, and 4 Signals Containers. Supposedly worth as much as half a Happy Meal 6 months from now, you can pick up this free-to-play cosmetic tripe for free instead of $30.

Moving on to a game I have far too much to say about, Mortal Shell is a Souls-like we reviewed a couple of years ago. The slow march of death is clutching at us all, to break our souls and demoralize us into accepting the greater march towards a dystopian future. Yeah sure, Freedom for Tooting and all that, but really the problem I have with Mortal Shell is the same problem I have with a lot of Souls-likes, they don’t actually understand what part of a Metroidvania is.

For Castlevania and Metroid it is a key that is identifiable or a section of the map being highlighted; for Dark Souls, it is the view into the distance, and for Elden Ring, it is that next ruddy-big castle on the horizon. The plot as far as anyone with two functioning brain cells can tell is that you wake up in a marshy forest swamp area, you get a vision of another marshy swamp you need to get to, and from there you are directed into another collection of grey, dim, and uninteresting marshy forest swamps to be beaten to death with sticks. So it’s like going to Grimsby.

What is probably more aggravating is Mortal Shell‘s insistence on the whole vagueness, which is also part of the Dark Souls/Ring/Borne genre. However, where the Souls and sacrifices come into play also happens to be doing so to tell a grander plot about entropy and the overall decay of life. Yet, where Mortel Shell tries to employ it is in the descriptions of items. If you find a mushroom, you need to eat it to figure out what it does and get the description, so fingers crossed you don’t pick up the poisonous mushrooms.

All this week, you can pick up Mortal Shell and the World of Warships – Anniversary Party Favor pack on the Epic Games Store until the morning of the 20th of March. Also, if you’re in Europe, the next offer might be a touch early due to that Daylight Savings thing. Next week is an evolution of what we’ve previously gotten before, Jurassic World Evolution 2. With a few more features than its prior title, this is presumably to drum up support for the previously announced Jurassic World Evolution 3, coming in 2026. Yeah, maybe that’s a stretch.