Before players face the final boss in Mortal Shell 2, the game hides a poignant and humorous design that hits right at players' gaming hour pain points.
Before the final battle, players can read several stone tablets inscribed with text. Instead of adding lore, developer Cold Symmetry plays a meta joke—the tablets read your Steam game data, humorously framing the thousands of hours you've sunk into Elden Ring as the Harbinger's adventures across fleeting worlds.
X user mislead shared the content of one such tablet: "But there is one place where they lingered the longest. 16,062 hours... Destiny 2... Why would they spend so much time in just one place? Were they searching for something they couldn't find in other worlds? Or were they trapped there?"
16,062 hours equals 669 days, or about one year and nine months. Being called out like this right before entering the final battlefield packs quite a punch. mislead complained, "Why is Mortal Shell 2 mocking my Destiny 2 playtime? I can't accept this 'Top Homebody Award'."
Many players on Reddit have also shared similar experiences, with some having multiple high-hour games called out by the stone tablets. The inscription reads: "If I gaze at a number for too long, unfamiliar words float into my mind. Elden Ring: Nightreign, Counter-Strike 2, Elden Ring... I don't understand their meaning... yet somehow I know they are each worlds of their own. SCUM, Hunt: Showdown 1896, Baldur's Gate 3... Worlds stacked upon worlds—but how can this be?"
This design brings to mind the classic tricks from early PS2 games that read memory card data, such as Psycho Mantis in Metal Gear Solid, who could read your save files and comment on other Konami games you'd played, like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Suikoden. But now, with Steam's absurdly precise playtime statistics, the sting is doubled. Thankfully, Psycho Mantis couldn't check how much time I spent on Ratchet & Clank back in the day.