In this Mortal Online 2 – A Hardcore Sandbox MMORPG article, we’re going to talk about the different races, action and profession skills, deep crafting system, and directional combat of the recently released MMORPG developed and published by Star Vault AB. Mortal Online 2 Early Access has been available on Steam since November 23, 2021, and ends this January.

Mortal Online 2 – A Hardcore Sandbox MMORPG (January 2022)

What is Mortal Online 2?

Mortal Online 2 is a Sandbox MMORPG that’s known for its complex and hardcore gameplay and combat mechanics. For instance, crafting isn’t as straightforward as in other sandbox games like Myth of Empires where you know the materials you need to construct different objects. You have to do a lot of trial and error, or join a guild to learn them. Additionally, you won’t be able to immediately build your house since you need to purchase a deed, which is costly. This allows you to lay claim on a piece of land where you are then free to build it on.

In terms of combat, there’s a heavy emphasis on PvP such that when you leave the tutorial area of Haven, you’ll be vulnerable to other players. There’s no PvP toggle so if you’re chopping wood out in the open, you can easily get killed by a hostile player to take all of your equipment and loot so you’ll have to start crafting these again.

Mortal Online 2 is the sequel to Mortal Online, which was released in 2015. Mortal Online is heavily inspired by early MMORPGs like Ultima Online when it comes to giving players the freedom to craft their weapons and armor, as well as build their houses from scratch. As such, the game is lauded for how immersive and real it is. Mortal Online 2 features more than 600 skills, a refined crafting system, house and city-building, which can be infiltrated or destroyed by others, and a finer PvE and PvP experience than it’s predecessor.

Mortal Online 2 Overview and Setting

Mortal Online 2 is set in the medieval fantasy world of Nave in the continent of Myrland. One hundred years ago, Myrland experienced a widespread epidemic known as the Tagmaton Irruption, which resulted in the invasion of giant insectoids. Not only did they devour crops, but they also consumed cattle and humans. These events led to the dwindling numbers of the human race. But thankfully, their suffering ended when multiple earthquakes impacted the land, pushing the deadly creatures away. Nobody knows what happened to them or where they are now. For a number of years that followed, the rest of the races went into hiding such as the Huergar who resided in caves.

In the present day, societies have begun reemerging from their temporary homes, resulting in squabbles left and right. Strange stonework fortifications built by another tribe called the Risar suggests they are growing in strength and number and may therefore pose a threat to the rest of civilization. There are also reports of missing explorers in the village, causing chaos in different communities. As all of these problems are slowly appearing, your goal is to establish your reputation in the world and improve your character however you want to.

Mortal Online 2 is aesthetically gorgeous because of the switch from Unreal Engine 3 to 4. The environments are lush and vibrant together with lighting that penetrates buildings and forests alike. You even have the option to turn on DLSS to enhance the graphics further. However, the landscapes, forests and plains themselves can feel quite isolating at times because of their massive size and less populated areas.

When it comes to the audio, the background music is reminiscent of RPGs like Skyrim but not as diverse. The sound effects are amazing though, especially when you’re gathering materials or sheathing your sword. You can smoothly distinguish one action from the other because of their quality.

Mortal Online 2 Gameplay and Combat Mechanics

Character Creation

In Mortal Online 2, you’ll only have 1 character per account, which wasn’t the case in the previous game where you could create 4 characters. The reason behind the change is to adapt to the new skill system consisting of combat and crafting-related skills. Now, you’re able to enhance and specialize in a multitude of abilities with a single character.

Before you jump into the starter zone of Haven, you have to complete character creation. Here, you’ll be choosing your gender, race, bloodline, attributes, and appearance. In total, there are 4 available races, namely Human, Alvarin, Oghmir and Thursar. For new players, I highly recommend picking Human because they’re flexible when it comes to survival and combat. This is due to the large number of attributes and skill points they initially have compared to the other races.

Second is Alvarin who has excellent survival skills. If you wish to play as a nimble beast master or an archer, then this race is for you. Third is Oghmir, which acts like a tank due to their high max health as well as defensive and self-healing capabilities. They’re also extremely intelligent, making them an ideal candidate for mages. Last but not the least is Thursar who excels in dealing great damage at close range. If you intend to become a pure warrior with immense strength, then this race should be for you.

You’ll then have to select your bloodline, which determines how your attributes and stat points are distributed accordingly. For example, if you’re predominantly a Tindremene with some Sidoian bloodline, then you’ll receive boosts to Strength, Constitution and Intelligence in addition to height and stamina. There are so many possible combinations but you can opt to select the default and pure Tindremene bloodline if it’s too confusing since attributes are enhanced when leveling up anyway.

Haven and Myrland

After completing character creation, you’ll be teleported to Haven to learn about the tutorials. Here, you’ll understand the basics of combat, crafting, and gathering materials. For those who have had no experience in Mortal Online 1 or 2, I suggest going through the entire tutorial in order to give you a feel of the game since you won’t be able to go back to this island once you leave.

You can then choose the world you wish to embark in depending on where your guild is located. Additionally, the only things you’ll carry into Nave are the weapons and armor you have equipped, not the money you’ve accumulated so you shouldn’t spend time making some in Haven. Once you’re in the city, it’s important to train your character to mount a horse because there’s no fast travel option in the game. You can do this by purchasing the Domestication and Creature Control Books from the Librarian in order to learn to ride and control your horse. This will help you get around town and the areas beyond it.

Furthermore, you’re technically in the safe zone when you stay in the city since there are a lot of guards roaming around. If you slay players and the guards notice, you’ll be flagged as a criminal, which means that you’re a prime target for everyone to try to put down. This affects your reputation wherever you go so you have to be careful.

Lastly, there are no quests in Myrland, meaning you’re free to do whatever you want, but this can be very daunting for new players. I would have preferred to do a couple of quests like in Myth of Empires to at least familiarize myself with the locations of where to gather resources since the world is vast. As such, I highly suggest joining a guild since the community is very helpful in terms of teaching new players.

Skills and Clade Gifts

As mentioned earlier, there are 2 skill groups in Mortal Online 2, particularly Action and Profession Skills corresponding to combat, crafting and movement abilities. These have entirely replaced character levels, which means that you have to level them up individually to become proficient in the ones you’ll be focusing on. Initially in Haven, you’ll be able to unlock a couple of these as you go through the basics by simply doing the activities over and over again. For instance, if you’ve chopped enough Dapplewood then your Woodcutting Skill would have reached the max level of 100.

Alternatively, to immediately gain access to a skill, you can purchase books from librarians to read them. So if you’re a mage, you’ll want to maximize Mental Training as well as the rest of the skills that fall under it. These are Mental Focus to lessen mana cost, Concentration to reduce the chances of getting interrupted while casting a spell, and Mental Offense to boost your spells’ effectiveness. You can buy these from the Magic Librarian.

What Mortal Online 2 doesn’t tell you is there are some skills you’ll be leveling up by mistake. They’ll be leveled up the moment you do their corresponding activities unless you use the 1,200 skill points you have. For example, if you intend to become a pure melee-based warrior, then you ought to remove levels from your Archery Skill. You should then lock it in order to prevent the skill from leveling up any further.

For any character, it’s important to reduce Endurance and Active Regeneration to their bare minimum. Endurance provides you with a very small bonus to Stamina whereas Active Regeneration only grants self-healing when you’re meditating or sitting down. You can instead apply bandage to your wounds in order to continue moving around.

Oftentimes, your primary skill points will overflow. Rather than manually removing their respective levels, you should click “Auto Fix Overflowed Skills” for the game to automatically do it and lock the skills for you.

Clade Gifts, on the other hand, are special perks to enhance your character’s attributes and skills. When you go to a city in Myrland, you’ll be able to choose up to 11 of these. The clade gifts you’ll want to unlock are Scholastic to increase your reading speed, Diplomatic to improve your standing with different nations, and Roughrider to boost all Mounted Skills. The rest will be up to you depending on the build you want to go for.

Crafting System

Mortal Online 2 is known for its complex and deep crafting system. There are so many core skills you can invest in such as Cooking, Shield Crafting, and Armor Crafting. If your skill and knowledge of the materials are exceptional, then the outcome and durability of the crafted items will be superior. Additionally, the combinations of resources, which are available for experimentation, are limitless.

For instance, with Shield Crafting, you’re able to make a kite or round shield. For round shields, you have to choose among Large, Medium, or Heavy Cores as well as Detailed Boss or Lion Frames, to name a few. The core, coating and frame materials will dictate the shield’s usability. So if you want to craft a Large Detailed Boss Frame Shield, the resources would be simpler to obtain and it ought to provide you with some form of protection. However, the defenses against Physical Damage become better if you were to choose the Lion Frame instead.

There’s no way to determine the best combinations possible without trial and error. But you can check out Mortaldata Workbench to theoretically test the effectiveness and durability of the items.

Similarly, there’s no map in Mortal Online 2 so it’s essential to refer to Mortal Online Map to identify where you should go to gather resources. This website helps you identify PvE hotspots, creature spawns, and wood and stone resources among others.

Combat

Mortal Online 2’s combat is in the first person view to see and feel the action up close, much like in Chivalry 2. It’s real-time and directional, which means that the way you control the path of your melee weapons largely depends on how you change angles using your mouse.

You can focus on creating a hybrid character, may it be a melee-based warrior and mage, since there are no classes in the game. However, if you want to fight as an Archer, then you’ll need to pay attention to the draw strength of your bow. Even if these styles require sufficient practice to truly master, the combat itself is both natural and fluid and the weapons you wield are weighty. Aiming isn’t hard to do either. But combat becomes frantic at times since you have a lot to lose.

When you die, your loot will be ripe for the taking by anyone, making every encounter extremely dangerous and risky so it’s important to travel in groups. Meanwhile, your spirit will travel to the etherworld in search of a priest to bring you back to Myrland.

Mortal Online 2 Final Thoughts

Mortal Online 2 has diverse and intricate skills and crafting systems that are interesting and exciting to learn about. This MMO definitely takes the sandbox genre to a whole new level, which can discourage some players due to its complexity. It has tutorials at the start but these aren’t enough to teach the game’s core mechanics. Instead, you’ll need to figure out 95% of it by yourself or with your guildmates. Additionally, there are occasional framedrop issues but I haven’t encountered major bugs in Early Access.

If you’ve been searching for a hardcore and challenging sandbox MMORPG, which features beautifully rendered landscapes, real-time combat, and deep skills and crafting systems, and you don’t mind the steep difficulty curve, then you should give Mortal Online 2 a try for 39.99 USD. Although there won’t be microtransactions, you’ll need to pay a monthly subscription fee starting in January 2022 when the game fully launches.

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What are your thoughts on Mortal Online 2? Will you be playing it soon? Let us know in the comments below! Catch more hands-on impressions in our latest previews Thymesia – A Bloodborne-Like Action RPG Coming Next Year (2022) and Wartales Gameplay & Features Impressions: Open-World Medieval RPG.