Taking heavy inspiration from the Dark Souls franchise, Mortal Shell is a dark fantasy RPG set in a medieval setting. Players are put in control of different “Shells” as they fight their way through the game’s various levels. Each of the Shells is a different playable character with their own unique abilities as well as backstories.

Mortal Shell got its only expansion—The Virtuous Cycle—back in 2021. The expansion adds a roguelike mode to the game, featuring randomly generated levels. Players are able to make use of over 100 different upgrades from Fallgrim’s pillars, and can also play using the new Shell, Hadern, which revolves around using quick attacks with daggers.

For more details on Mortal Shell, check out our review of the base game, as well as our review of The Virtuous Cycle.

Check out the range of titles coming to both Extra and Premium:

• Adventure Time Pirates of the Enchiridion (PS4)
• Ben 10: Power Trip (PS5, PS4)
• The Escapists 2 (PS4)
• Evil Genius 2: World Domination (PS5, PS4)
• Far Cry 5 (PS4)
• Far Cry New Dawn (PS4)
• Far Cry Primal (PS4)
• Gigantosaurus The Game (PS4)
• Judgment (PS5, PS4)
• Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (PS4)
• Middle-Earth: Shadow of War (PS4)
• Mortal Shell (PS5, PS4)
• The Pedestrian (PS5, PS4)
• Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire – Ultimate Edition (PS4)
• WWE 2K22 (PS4)
• Yakuza 6: The Song of Life (PS4)
• Yakuza: Like a Dragon (PS5, PS4)
• Worms W.M.D (PS4)

Some heavy hitters include Judgment and Yakuza: Like a Dragon, playable on PS5 and PS4. Far Cry 5 and New Dawn may also be worth jumping into, while Far Cry Primal offers a prehistoric spin on the series’ open-world gameplay.

Premium subscribers also get new Classic titles this month, including Pinball Heroes and Ridge Racer 2 on the PlayStation Portable. Oddworld: Abe’s Exoddus on the PlayStation One and Ninja Theory’s Heavenly Sword on PS3 are also being added. For more details on the free titles offered with PlayStation Plus Essential, head here.

PlayStation Plus Extra is available for $14.99 monthly and $99.99 yearly. PlayStation Plus Premium costs $17.99 monthly and $119.99 yearly. Stay tuned for more details on future additions to both tiers in the coming weeks.

Sony has officially announced the three titles coming next week: Godfall for the PS5, and Mortal Shell and Lego DC Super-Villains for PS4. A couple of things to make note of here. Mortal Shell is only the PS4 version of the game, it does not include the recently released Enhanced Edition that came to next gen consoles.

Godfall is also not the full game, but instead a version being dubbed the Challenger Edition. This edition seems to cut out the main game and focuses on Lightbringer, Dreamstones, and the Ascended Tower of Trials, three other modes that are endgame level content. It’s a strange move, but it’s said you’ll have “a spread of deadly weapons and skill points,” presumably to make up for not being able to go through the campaign. Lego DC Super-Villains, meanwhile, looks to be a pretty straightforward version of the PS4 release, so there is that at least. You can read more details at the PlayStation blog through here.

All three games will be available to redeem for PS Plus members starting December 7th.

Godfall, which launched as a PS5 launch title (and is also now available on PS4), might not have grabbed many people, but those who’ve been curious to try it out will apparently have a chance in December. Interestingly, it looks like Godfall Challenger Edition will be offered to subscribers- though that isn’t an edition that exists yet or has even been announced, so it remains to be seen what it will entail.

Meanwhile, the other two games for the months are seemingly going to be Cold Symmetry’s Soulslike action RPG Mortal Shell (though it doesn’t look like it’ll be the Enhanced Edition) and LEGO DC Super-Villains.

November is almost over, so Sony will likely be announcing the December PS Plus lineup soon, so stay tuned for those details in the coming days.

On November 18th, Exo One, Fae Tactics, My Friend Pedro and Undungeon arrive for cloud, consoles and PC while Deeeer Simulator and Mortal Shell debut for all three platforms on November 23rd. Evil Genius 2: World Domination closes out the month, releasing on November 30th for cloud, consoles and PC.

Of course, a number of titles will also be leaving on November 30th, both on Xbox Game Pass and EA Play so subscribers are advised to play them now while they can. Said titles include:

• Call of the Sea (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• FIFA 19 (Console and PC)
• Football Manager 2021 (PC)
• Football Manager 2021 Xbox Edition (Console and PC)
• Haven (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Hello Neighbor (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Morkredd (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Va-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action (PC)

Meanwhile, Destiny 2: Beyond Light is set to leave cloud and consoles on December 8th.

"The Virtuous Cycle’s addition of a roguelite, along with its new shell and weapon, make it worthwhile for the fans of the game who want a new way to play, but I hesitate to say it adds any value to the game itself for newcomers."

In its original version, Mortal Shell is a Soulslike through and through. It has an interconnected world with tough enemies whose attack patterns you need to learn and who respawn when you die. Its slight differentiation comes in its semi-linearity within each of the three paths you can take, each of which ends with a boss. In The Virtuous Cycle, there’s a new character in the Fallgrim Tower who takes you to what is effectively an alternate universe, where the environments are mostly the same but the game turns into a Soulslike roguelite, which doesn’t affect your progress in the main campaign at all. In this alternate universe, named the reverie, the walls of Fallgrim Tower are locked except for a single pillar through which you can escape, starting your next run of the game. To begin, you choose which shell, weapon, and instinct you want to use for your run through the game, and you’re spawned into one of a handful of locations around the game’s opening area.

Of course, the roguelite run that you’ve just embarked on is different than any of the traditional runs in the game’s primary campaign. Most notably, you succeed if you can defeat the entirety of the game in a single run, but any time you die, you’re transported back to Fallgrim Tower and have to start from scratch, all but erasing the type of step-by-step progression that’s so basic in Soulslikes. Instead, progression here comes in the form of pillars and touch stones. These are scattered around the world and provide benefits in ways similar to any other roguelite on the market. Most of these benefits are your standard increase in dodge roll speed, drop rates, or damage, though some less common ones give you bigger benefits, refresh the ability to recover your shell, or even provide boosts that last permanently instead of just for that run.

On the gameplay front, very little has changed from the base game. Enemies appear in slightly different locations and sometimes larger groups, but the core of stabbing, rolling, and hardening is as pure and satisfying as ever. If nothing else, playing through The Virtuous Cycle is a great way to get back into the gameplay and feel how tightly choreographed the fights can feel and how satisfying it is to take down any range of enemies. This means that what also hasn’t changed is the game’s punishing difficulty. In some other roguelites, any individual enemy might not be the most intimidating or have a chance to kill you on its own, but here there’s never a safety net. You have to be on your game at all times or you’ll die, and just as before, you will die a lot.

"If nothing else, playing through The Virtuous Cycle is a great way to get back into the gameplay and feel how tightly choreographed the fights can feel and how satisfying it is to take down any range of enemies."

Obviously, Mortal Shell is by design a frustrating experience. You’re supposed to get ambushed or killed if you make a wrong move or don’t manage your stamina correctly. The main game makes up for this within gameplay with the unparalleled feeling of satisfaction that comes when you finally do beat that pesky boss and can be done with it forever, but with the roguelite structure, The Virtuous Cycle inherently loses this feeling of progression and doesn’t quite make up for it elsewhere. Just like in the campaign, there isn’t much direction in which path to take, and this makes it feel like you can wander with no clear path forward or understanding of what you need to do next. In a lot of ways, too, the main campaign can almost be classified as a long sequence of very short roguelike moments, where every death is the start of a new run and every Sister Genessa instance starts the next sequence. Taking out the idea of pushing forward no matter how many runs it takes removes a lot of the overarching feeling of progression.

The only way The Virtuous Cycle allows for this sense of progression is with a permanent upgrade system that allows you to pay tar or glimpses for a chance at better starting Instincts or the ability to keep more tar at the end of a run. On a purely structural level, this is a good way of building in slow progression, but it took more than 20 runs of 25-30 minutes each around just the opening level to come anywhere close to having enough tar to open a gate to a new area, and at this point I was already getting tired of the single boss and relatively small number of enemy types in the opening area. Eventually, things started to open up as my tar retention upon death was high enough to keep me going without starting from zero, but I can understand anyone who gets frustrated with the snail-like progression in the first few hours, even more so than the normal game.

The Virtuous Cycle also offers a new shell in the form of Hadern and the new Axatana weapon, both offering more variety than any shell or weapon before. Hadern is a cool addition as one of the main bosses in the main game who kicked my teeth in a handful of times, so getting to play as him is satisfying, especially since he’s a combination of the rest of the shells. The Axatana is a mashup of the eponymous axe and katana, which allows you to switch between agility and power quickly. While both of these are great additions to create some more variety, I never felt they were better or more fitting to my playstyle than the combo I had almost mastered through the campaign, so I never felt a need to use them more than just trying them out.

"Eventually, things started to open up as my tar retention upon death was high enough to keep me going without starting from zero, but I can understand anyone who gets frustrated with the snail-like progression in the first few hours, even more so than the normal game."

Mortal Shell certainly had some new ideas to offer the Soulslike genre at launch, and with The Virtuous Cycle, I applaud Cold Symmetry for trying new things and giving players a ton of replay value with a new, if somewhat derivative, roguelite mode and variety with the new weapon and shell. What I don’t like about the new mode is purely in its comparison with the main campaign, as it feels like the satisfying feeling of beating bosses with finality is taken away with less of a sense of progression or improvement to take its place, especially because many sequences in the campaign, as with other Soulslike games, have their own roguelike characteristics. For anyone who’s played or wants to get into a Soulslike, Mortal Shell is a great place to look, though it loses a little something when it takes away that rigid structure.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

The main appeal of The Virtuous Cycle is its new roguelike mode with randomly generated environments. As players progress, they’ll take advantage of over 100 different upgrades from pillars throughout Fallgrim. The new Shell, Hadern, is all about daggers and absorbing damage, while the new weapon, the Axatana, can be used either as a pair of katana or an axe.

Those picking up the game on Steam can avail of a 10 percent discount, which includes the base game and The Virtuous Cycle, until August 25th. For more details on Mortal Shell and how it plays, check out our official review here.

Ahead of The Virtuous Cycle’s release, a launch trailer has been released for it (which you can check out below), with some other interesting news also being confirmed. The DLC will be free for everyone to download for five days after its launch, until August 23. Following that, players will be able to purchase it for $7.99.

Mortal Shell is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC. In our review of the game, we awarded it a score of 7/10, saying, “Mortal Shell has a lot of things that allow it to be notable in its own right, but it makes it hard to forget that it’s taking from a giant whose shadow it never truly escapes.” You can read our full review through here.

The new Shell is called Hadern and has numerous abilities ranging from mastery of daggers to a damage absorption technique. It will be playable in both the base campaign and the DLC. The newest weapon is the Axatana which can function either as a heavy axe or a pair of katana, each possessing unique moves.

But that’s not all. The Virtuous Cycle also introduces a new roguelike mode which sees players venturing through a randomly generated world. With over 100 upgrades to earn, including new weapon enhancements and moves, the mode promises lots of replay value for fans. For more details on the base game, check out our review here.

Not much was revealed about The Virtuous Cycle though it will be coming to Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 and PC. Along with the Epic Games Store, it’s also bound for Steam, where the base game releases this Summer. So if you’ve been eagerly awaiting the Steam release, it looks like it’ll be happening in the coming months and bringing some new content.

For more details on Mortal Shell, check out our review here. The Enhanced Edition recently released for Xbox Series X/S and PS5 in February with enhanced textures and support 4K/60 FPS performance. It’s also a free upgrade for Xbox One and PS4 players.