Mortal Shell 2 PC Performance Analysis Highlights Unreal Engine 5 Engine Capabilities and Traversal Stutters

Developer Cold Symmetry's recently released action role-playing game, Mortal Shell 2, has been put through a comprehensive PC performance analysis. Powered by Unreal Engine 5.2 and published by Playstack, the Soulslike sequel utilizes modern rendering features including Lumen and Nanite, allowing the title to punch above its weight class for a project from a smaller studio. However, testing across a variety of hardware configurations reveals a mix of strong frame-rate optimization and notable technical caveats.

Hardware testing conducted using systems equipped with processors like the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D paired with 32GB of DDR5 memory highlights that Mortal Shell 2 is fundamentally a GPU-bound title. At a 1080p resolution, even older hardware such as the NVIDIA RTX 2080Ti can achieve a smooth gaming experience when paired with a G-Sync monitor, while top-tier cards like the NVIDIA RTX 5090 are utilized to their fullest. Stepping up to 1440p at Ultra Settings allows high-end graphics cards to comfortably maintain over 60 frames per second at all times. At Native 4K Ultra, however, the NVIDIA RTX 5090 stands out as the primary GPU capable of sustaining framerates above 60FPS constantly, with the RTX 4090 averaging around 63FPS.

To assist players in tweaking their experience, Cold Symmetry included options to adjust shadow quality, textures, view distance, and global illumination. The game also provides built-in support for NVIDIA DLSS 4 and AMD FSR 3.0, though Intel XeSS is absent, and an included Hardware Ray Tracing setting reportedly does not function. Despite achieving solid overall performance compared to other Unreal Engine 5 games, testers noted major visual Lumen artifacts and occasional traversal stutters—issues that were previously observed during the game's open beta build and remain somewhat disappointing for a precise Soulslike experience.