An experimental adaptive difficulty mode has been introduced in the latest update for Mortal Shell 2. This new feature dynamically adjusts the game's challenge by increasing or decreasing enemy strength and resilience based on how well the player is performing.
When a player is succeeding, the mode makes enemies more difficult. According to a Steam blog post, "Enemies gain damage, health and break resist, so they hit harder, take longer to bring down and are more difficult to stagger." The difficulty can scale beyond the game's original intended challenge if a player continues to succeed without dying. Conversely, if a player struggles and dies frequently, enemies will become weaker. They will deal less damage, have reduced health, and a cap will be applied to prevent any single attack from depleting a significant portion of the player's health bar, thereby preventing instant KOs from full health. It is noted that these enemy reductions do not apply when playing in Night Mode.
Currently, there is no visual indicator to signal whether the game's difficulty has changed, though the developers plan to implement this in a future update. Beyond the adaptive difficulty, the update also enables players to apply status effects to enemies after a successful riposte. The logic for Gloom drops upon death has been improved to make it easier for players to recover their lost Gloom. The update also includes numerous bug fixes, performance enhancements, audio adjustments, and some narrative alterations.