This review was edited to ensure my criticism reads as more constructive

Some have suggested this game may be a scam.

I wouldn’t go that far, though the development team’s grandiose ambitions and boasts of state-of-the-art tech are reminiscent of Peter Molyneux. Proceed with caution.

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Despite Mortal Online 2 being the closest thing we have to a modern day Ultima Online, I cannot recommend it over UO.

My initial review was scathing, yet I felt it lacked focus. There were aspects of the game that I lightly touched when perhaps I should have gone into more detail. That is what I aim to fix with this "revised" edition. As someone who prides themselves on choosing their words carefully, and who does their best to be mindful and considerate of other's time, I will expand on my scathing review of Mortal Online 2.

Straight up, this game is essentially an interactive, unmoderated BestGore forum with murder mechanics draped in a medieval fantasy theme.

Imagine the lowliest dregs of Rust, Conan Exiles, Dead by Daylight, Valorant, and League of Legends intermixing. Sound awful? Well, it gets worse. In Mortal Online 2, these psychopathic miscreants have free reign over an entire continent, gleefully acting out their strongest impulses—from corpse camping to monopolizing the game's economy, and everything in between.

In other words, a cesspool. More accurately, a cesspool with $40 entry fee and a $15 monthly subscription.

By paying this entry fee, you're signing yourself up to potentially endless bullying and corpse camping until you either quit, or join their ranks. Yikes.


Solo progression in this game is discouraged. This is a feature, not a bug.

Should you progress far enough in the game—having worked your way up the sociopolitical ladder—you will find the economy and landscape aggressively controlled and manipulated by the dominant factions. These factions, of which there are few, resemble mafia families more than tribes or clans, employing bullying tactics to maintain control.

If you manage to prove your worth and earn a place within one of these groups, you will not only be expected to treat it like a full-time career but also to adopt their behavior.

Overwhelmingly, these groups are populated by the toxic, sweaty edgelords and trolls commonly found lurking in any number of obscure internet forums.

Like flies to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, as they say.


Pros

• The World - Harsh and unforgiving, traversing the wilderness in search of resources is genuinely thrilling. Safety in numbers!

• Economy - If you enjoy the “auction house” aspect of MMOs, this game will scratch that itch. It’s the only reason I played as long as I did.

Cons

• Business Model - Despite being against “the vision,” this game needs to go free-to-play and open more servers, or it will continue to fade into obscurity. Doing so would also remove the stranglehold the aforementioned "mafias" have on the economy, however, it is clear that this is by design. Just know what you are getting yourself into before dropping $40.

If you want an Ultima Online-type experience, just play Ultima Online.

• PvP - Do you live somewhere other than Europe? Perhaps you ought to skip this title. The devs boasted some state-of-the-art “oNe wOrLd, onE sErveR” technology to eliminate global ping-related issues. Such a thing does not exist.

As a player in New Zealand—which, on planet Earth, is about as far from the servers as one could possibly be—I can confirm that their “top secret special network sauce” is a crock of nonsense. The PvE experience, however, is mostly manageable. Mostly.

• The Community - Remember the bit about the world being harsh and unforgiving? Despite a few good eggs here and there, the player base is—overwhelmingly—a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Ever had the misfortune of stumbling upon 4chan, BestGore, or r/fatpeoplehate?

Decent bunch, right? Well, imagine they’ve wormed their way out of their respective pits and gravitated towards each other to form the bulk of the factions that dominate this lawless, medieval wasteland. Disable global chat as soon as you can.


Check the active player count since launch and then try to convince me this business model is well-thought-out. You would think the devs would have learned from the disastrous launch in January 2022—or, you know, the first Mortal Online.

Newsflash: they did not!

2022 Player Count

Peak Player Count: 9,618 (Launch)

2023 Player Count

Peak Player Count: 2,154 (2023)

2024 Player Count

Peak Player Count: 1,501 (2024)

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Please do not get me wrong. With your buds, MO2 has its moments of wicked fun.

Unfortunately, this is one of those games whose potential is hamstrung by the hubris of its project managers. The pricing of their "state of the art" experience is a surefire way to ensure not only a plateau in playerbase growth but also a significant limitation to its marketability.

This is just common ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sense.

At a $40 entry fee, the game effectively alienates "curious but casual" players who might otherwise be willing to try it. Toxicity aside, this barrier of entry, combined with the additional $15 monthly subscription cost?

Again, just a big ol' yikes from me, dawg. As a result, the game’s already small yet hardcore userbase remains insulated, with little incentive for new players to join.

Worse yet, this stagnation cements a power imbalance within the economy. A purely player-driven one at that. The dominant factions—those who have already entrenched themselves—maintain an iron grip on resources and trading. Any newcomers , if they're mad enough to shell out forty bucks after reading this far, are met with an uphill battle.

This discourages fresh competition, innovation, and, ultimately, the community that any sandbox MMO needs to thrive. And for what? For the sake of being able to boast that your game isn't free-to-play? Again, the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hubris. At the very least, just steal ESO's pricing model. It ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ works.

By clinging to this current model, the devs have effectively shot themselves in the foot, and are continuing to shoot the same spot, as if to think that if they keep shooting the same spot, the bleeding will eventually stop.

Which is true. Eventually it will stop bleeding. After it dies.

Just a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ shame, really. It could have been great.

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TL;DR - As as it stands, is merely another cruddy gumdrop in a sea of half-baked blunders.

Much like DayZ, this game will flounder from one patch to the next, with its unremarkable head teetering only inches above water—until they put the game on life support and start development on MO3.

Updated TL;DR - I really liked the previous TL;DR and it was a great jab. Just updating this as the game received a 2.0 update, which means that I can no longer refer to it as "half-baked".

Thanks for listening to my TED Talk.

The following is an excerpt from The Pagans’ Book of Green Words

"Ahhh, sneaksie little thiefers, ye comes lookin’ to takers what bees not yers, hmm?

If ye’s both knowers and bees having answers with “yesss” to the question above, then this game bees fer ye!

Ye doubts me, do ye? Then you bees foolish! Know this—Thief 3 bees having some of the most strange, oddity talkers ever heard! It bees true!

Click here and witness it for yer thiefy self!

Seesy the madmen, the watchies, and the tricksy folk who bees jabberin' and all night, mutterers like the wind through thems windows on that cursed ship. They speaksies in tones what bees makes laughers or tiltsy yer head wonderin’ why thems not be makers sense...

If ye still here, all bolders and brave, and neither the clinks of odd chatter nor the creaky, old-timey visuals be drivin’ ye away, then ohhh, sweet thiefers, a true treat waits fer ye.

The City—it be’s all dark, filled with them shadows all glimmery blue, and thems walky, talky souls with thems big pockets be's not noticin' ye slinkers behind them. A place where strong, castle-y walls and mossy cracks and crypts bees holders the secrets.

So you betters be steppers into the gloomy gloom and bees making it yer playground, thiefers. Steal from the richies, trick the watchies, but ye betters be knowin' the Pagans bees having all eyes...

Now be you goes away, sneaksie thiefers. Take what bees yers—or what’s not. Bees the thiefers choice."

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If you've made it this far into my review and the dialogue nor the dated visuals have put you off, I have no doubts that the inky gloom of the City and its eccentric inhabitants are sure to leave an impression on you.

Let's just rip the bandaid off real quick. In its vanilla state, Deadly Shadows is sure to be enjoyable for fans of the stealth genre. However, due to the challenges of playing a dated game on modern platforms, it isn’t without its issues. Expect bugs.

With that said, you should prepare yourself for a little extra legwork, though the modding community has streamlined that process for you.

I want to reassure you that it will be worth the effort.

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Enter: the unofficial Sneaky Upgrade patch, a mod that catapults this early 2000s stealth gem to new heights.

With a few simple tweaks in the pre-launch menu, the City Watch's AI detection can be improved so that, rather than being taffin' near-sighted inebriates, Garret's foes may be granted inhuman perception akin to cats. Yes. That is what I would compare them to. Cat Men.

Bipedal, inebriated Cat Men capable of spotting Garrett’s beady, mechanical eye in the dankest dark before the player can shout, “Azkaban.”

Even if the City Watch were quite literally Cat Men, they still wouldn't be the strangest enemies to feature in the game. For those unfamiliar with the Thief series, it errs of the side of strange, though I won't spoil it for you.

Anyway, please follow me back to that bit about AI detection...

I do not recommend cranking the AI detection slider to max unless you are a masochist who gets off on the crackle pop of Noise Maker arrows and does not mind developing an excessive reliance on them, but the option is there.

That's not all, folks. Along with a handful of user interface tweaks, most of the sub-regions in each level have been connected, making the levels feel larger and more seamless. Less loading screens means more time spent committing sweet, unadulterated thievery.

The City's design had always aspired to a sprawling and interconnected experience, however due to limitations of the engine and a troubled development cycle, well, we got what we got.

Big shoutout to the modders for their time and effort. Though it may never hold a candle to the intricate level design of its predecessors, this is as close as we'll get to Thief 3 as it was originally intended.

Link below:

Thief 3 Sneaky Upgrade

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- Garrett, the titular Thief, is voiced by Stephen Russell, AKA Corvo Attano in Dishonored 2, the Mister Handys in Fallout 3 and Fallout 4, Nick Valentine in Fallout 4, and a slew of NPCs in Skyrim (Markarth's Cidna Mine quest, anyone?)

- Silent Hill 1&2 fans, rejoice! In the final hours of the game, there is a somewhat drastic shift in pace. The game's atmosphere transitions from "street dark" to "there is now a spot on my underpants" dark. Prepare for an expertly-paced audio/visual thrill and a masterpiece in level design which would later influence modern jump-scare heavyweights like Outlast.

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Q: How long would it take me to complete the game?

Depends on the difficulty and your playstyle. A first-time playthrough will probably take between 10-15 hours.

Q: Are there shellfish in this game?

In the game? No. Not that I am aware of.

Q: Can I please worship you?

I'd rather you didn't.

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