The Mortal Shell II Open Beta doesn’t hand you everything on a silver platter. You can blast through the main path, reach the end, and still miss a Shell, Tarstones, optional fights, and a bunch of useful side content.
So, if you’re trying to squeeze everything you can out of the beta, this guide points you toward the important secrets and hidden items without making you wander around the map for hours.
Note: This guide covers the Mortal Shell II Open Beta build, not every item in the full game. Beta progress resets at launch, so don’t worry about farming currency or permanently upgrading your character.
Mortal Shell II Open Beta Secrets: Quick Overview
The Open Beta gives you the opening section of Mortal Shell II, including the Prologue and the first explorable region. Along the way, you can find Tiel, the Acolyte, explore optional dungeons, hunt hidden mini-bosses, complete challenges, cleanse Beacons, and collect Tarstones.
The main things worth hunting are:
- Tiel, the Acolyte
- Tarstones and other collectibles
- Optional dungeons
- Hidden mini-bosses
- Dungeon challenges
- All available Beacons
- The Axe and Dagger
- The beta’s progression rewards
If you’re going for a near-100% beta run, don’t simply follow the main objective marker and leave.
Tiel Location in the Mortal Shell II Open Beta
Tiel is the biggest secret most players will want to find.
He’s one of the eight playable Shells in Mortal Shell II, and the Open Beta specifically includes his remains as a discoverable Shell.
Where to find Tiel
After reaching Marrow Keep, make your way into the Fainweald area and head toward Mushroom Village.
Tiel’s route is tied to the area around the village and its Ritual Grounds. Current route guides place his remains near the southern side of Mushroom Village, making the area one of the first places you should thoroughly explore rather than sprint straight toward the next objective.
When you find Tiel’s remains, interact with them to claim the Shell and access his abilities.
Tiel is worth grabbing even if you don’t plan to use him permanently. You’re only seeing a slice of the game in the beta, so it’s a good chance to experiment with a completely different playstyle.
Don’t Miss the Mushroom Village Secrets
Mushroom Village is one of the most important areas to explore during the beta.
There’s more here than the main route suggests, including Tiel’s location, Tarstones, a key, and a dungeon connected to the village area. Community documentation currently lists several beta items here.
The documented Mushroom Village rewards include:
- Emberseed Stone — inside the dungeon reached from the Mushroom Village Beacon
- Deadman’s Stone — inside a chest near the entrance
- Shattering Stone — in a chest near Tiel’s corpse
- Marksman’s Stone — earned by completing the nearby trial
- Mushroom Village Key — another useful exploration pickup
So if you’ve already picked up Tiel, don’t immediately leave.
Explore the village again.
Check the Beacon area, surrounding paths, nearby chests, and the dungeon entrance.
Tarstone Locations and Hidden Items
Tarstones are some of the easiest collectibles to miss because they aren’t always sitting directly on the main route.
The Open Beta featured 14 Tarstones, although current community documentation has only been able to independently map 12 of those routes rather than guessing the locations of the remaining two.
Some of the documented beta Tarstones include:
| Tarstone | Location |
|---|---|
| Parasitic Stone | Church Dungeon |
| Arbiter’s Prize | Great Arbiter of Flesh encounter |
| Emberseed Stone | Mushroom Village dungeon |
| Deadman’s Stone | Mushroom Village entrance area |
| Shattering Stone | Mushroom Village, near Tiel |
| Marksman’s Stone | Trial near Mushroom Village Gate |
These are particularly useful to look for because they’re tied to exploration, optional encounters, and side challenges rather than simply following the main quest.
One important warning about Tarstone numbers
You may see articles claiming there are only 14 Tarstones in Mortal Shell II.
That’s the beta count, not the final game’s total.
The launch version has considerably more Tarstones, so don’t use the beta number as a guide to the full game.
Find the Great Arbiter of Flesh
Here’s another secret you can easily walk past.
Near Widow’s Overlook, you can encounter the Great Arbiter of Flesh, an optional mini-boss associated with one of the beta’s achievements and one of the game’s collectible routes.
This fight is worth doing before moving on because the beta specifically encourages players to explore hidden mini-boss encounters, and the encounter is tied to the Arbiter’s Prize Tarstone.
In other words, don’t treat Widow’s Overlook as just a place to rest and move on.
Explore the surrounding area first.
Church Dungeon Secrets
The Church Dungeon contains more than just another group of enemies.
Community beta documentation places Parasitic Stone inside the dungeon, while defeating the Great Arbiter of Flesh gives access to the Arbiter’s Prize Tarstone.
This is exactly the sort of side content that’s easy to miss if you’re following only the fastest route to the beta’s final encounter.
Before leaving the dungeon, check the side rooms and make sure you’ve collected everything you can.
Don’t Skip the Mushroom Village Trial
The trial near the Mushroom Village Gate is another easy one to overlook.
Completing it rewards the Marksman’s Stone, according to the current beta collection documentation.
If you’re trying to collect all the Mortal Shell II Open Beta hidden items, treat these trials as part of your checklist rather than optional distractions.
They’re some of the most obvious examples of the beta hiding rewards away from the main story route.
Find the Axe and Dagger
The Axe and Dagger are also obtainable during the Open Beta.
The beta’s achievement list specifically includes Find Axe and Dagger, and current route documentation places the weapons at the Mushroom Village Gate, inside the first circular room near the Beacon.
So when you reach the gate, don’t just run straight through.
Check the area around the Beacon and the first room.
Cleanse All Seven Beacons
Beacons aren’t just convenient fast-travel points.
The beta contains an achievement for cleansing all Beacons, and current walkthrough documentation identifies seven available Beacons along the beta route.
They’re worth activating because they also make exploration much less painful. If you die while carrying a pile of resources, having a nearby Beacon can save you a frustrating run back.
A good habit is simple:
Whenever you enter a new area, look for the Beacon before pushing deeper.
Destroy the Corrupted Statues
Another easy-to-miss objective is destroying the three Corrupted Statues.
Current beta route documentation lists this as the objective associated with the A Dark Force is Near achievement.
Don’t assume these are automatically destroyed as part of the main route.
Check the surrounding areas as you progress and make sure you’ve dealt with all three.
What Happens at the End of the Beta?
The Open Beta eventually takes you through Sunken Village and toward Magdalena, the Lady of the Woods, the beta’s major end-point encounter.
So your exploration doesn’t need to stop once you’ve reached Marrow Keep.
A solid completion route is:
Marrow Keep → Widow’s Overlook → Mushroom Village → Sunken Village → Magdalena
Along the way, take the optional paths for Tiel, Tarstones, the Great Arbiter of Flesh, trials, weapons, Beacons and other collectibles.
Do Mortal Shell II Open Beta Items Carry Over?
This is probably the most important thing to know before you start grinding.
Most of your beta progress does not carry over.
According to the official Steam beta listing, your:
- Currency
- Weapons
- Shells
- Collectibles
- Other discovered items
reset when the full game launches.
So don’t spend hours farming the beta because you think you’ll enter the full game with a maxed-out inventory.
What does carry over?
There are two important beta rewards.
Flayed Harbinger
Playing the Open Beta unlocks the Flayed Harbinger cosmetic for the full game.
Prologue Skip
Progressing beyond Marrow Keep unlocks the option to skip the Prologue when playing the full game.
That makes reaching Marrow Keep especially worthwhile even if you’re not interested in collecting everything.
Is There a Secret High-Health Shell?
You may have seen posts claiming that there’s a hidden Shell with a huge health pool involving a dual-wielding enemy, falling debris and Harden.
Be careful with that information.
The official Open Beta documentation specifically confirms Tiel as the additional discoverable Shell in the beta. It does not confirm a separate secret high-health Shell.
So I wouldn’t treat the “secret high-health Shell” story as established fact unless you’re looking at information from a specific beta build that can be independently verified.
For a reliable Mortal Shell II Open Beta guide, Tiel is the confirmed secret Shell to prioritize.
Mortal Shell II Open Beta 100% Checklist
Want to make sure you didn’t leave something behind?
Use this before finishing your beta run:
- Reach Marrow Keep
- Unlock Tiel
- Explore Widow’s Overlook
- Defeat the Great Arbiter of Flesh
- Find the Parasitic Stone
- Find the Arbiter’s Prize
- Explore Mushroom Village
- Find the Emberseed Stone
- Find the Deadman’s Stone
- Find the Shattering Stone
- Complete the Marksman’s trial
- Find the Mushroom Village Key
- Find the Axe and Dagger
- Cleanse all seven Beacons
- Destroy all three Corrupted Statues
- Explore the optional dungeons
- Complete the available challenges
- Reach Magdalena, the Lady of the Woods
- Progress beyond Marrow Keep to unlock the Prologue skip
- Make sure the Flayed Harbinger reward is unlocked
Final Takeaway
If you’re hunting for Mortal Shell II Open Beta secrets, don’t just speedrun the story.
Your biggest priorities should be Tiel, Mushroom Village, the optional dungeons, Tarstones, the Great Arbiter of Flesh, the nearby trials, all seven Beacons, and the three Corrupted Statues. The official beta was deliberately built to encourage this kind of side exploration, with hidden mini-bosses, challenges and optional areas alongside the main route.
And remember: your beta inventory gets wiped. The real reasons to complete the beta are to uncover its secrets, learn the systems, and secure the Flayed Harbinger cosmetic and Prologue Skip reward for the full game.