So, let’s talk about soulslikes and be honest for a second here. If you throw a rock at the Steam storefront right now, you are statistically likely to hit a game with a stamina bar, a dodge roll, and a gloomy atmosphere that takes itself way too seriously. We are living in the golden age of the action RPG, but according to the team behind Another Crab’s Treasure, that golden age is starting to look a little bit repetitive. Caelan Pollock, the narrative lead at developer Aggro Crab, believes that the obsession with the soulslike label is actually hurting the industry.
It creates a feedback loop where developers aren’t trying to make good games. They are just trying to make Dark Souls again. And as Pollock points out, FromSoftware already did that perfectly the first time around.
The Problem With Chasing the Soulslike Dragon
In a recent interview, Pollock dropped a truth bomb that might hurt the feelings of a few indie studios currently sweating over their bonfire placement. He argued that the term soulslike has become a trap. Instead of using the mechanics as a foundation to build something new, developers get stuck trying to recreate the specific magic of Lordran.
“I think calling games ‘soulslikes’ has kept a lot of devs stuck in a loop of recreating Dark Souls,” Pollock explained. “In my opinion, the best Dark Souls game has been made already, and it’s called Dark Souls.”
He isn’t wrong. How many times have we played a gritty fantasy RPG that feels like a cover band playing a song they haven’t quite mastered? The issue isn’t that people are inspired by Hidetaka Miyazaki’s work. The issue is that they are trying to clone it without understanding the “why” behind the design. Pollock notes that the original game was “deeply imperfect” and that those rough edges were part of its charm. When a modern “soulslike” tries to sand down those edges while copying the difficulty, you end up with a product that feels hollow. It’s like trying to paint the Mona Lisa by numbers. You might get the shapes right, but the soul is missing.
Innovation vs. Imitation in the Genre
This is where Aggro Crab decided to take a hard left turn. When they sat down to make their own entry into the “soulslike” canon, they didn’t go for grim castles or sad knights. They went for a hermit crab in a polluted ocean.
Another Crab’s Treasure is definitely a soulslike in terms of mechanics. You have difficult combat, pattern recognition is key, and you will absolutely die a lot. But the context is entirely fresh. You play as a crab using literal garbage, soda cans, thimbles, and discarded plastic as armor shells to protect yourself. It’s a colorful, vibrant take on a genre that usually loves the color gray.
Pollock mentioned that this was a gamble. They were betting that the community was ready for a soulslike that didn’t take itself so seriously. They leaned into the absurdity of the climate crisis, turning plastic waste into a gameplay mechanic rather than just depressing background art. It proves that you can keep the challenging combat loop that fans love without feeling like you are just making a mod for Dark Souls 3.
Redefining What a Soulslike Can Be
The debate over what actually constitutes a soulslike is exhausted at this point. Is it the difficulty? Does the currency drop upon death? The vague storytelling? It seems the definition is expanding, and that is a good thing. If we want the genre to survive another decade, we need more games like Another Crab’s Treasure and fewer games that are just FromSoftware cosplay.
Developers need to look at the soulslike tag not as a rigid rulebook, but as a spice rack. You can sprinkle in the combat pacing or the level design philosophy, but you have to cook your own meal. As Pollock suggests, mimicry gets you nowhere. If you try to recreate every single aspect of the Dark Souls experience, you aren’t making art worth paying attention to. You are just reminding players that they could be playing the original instead.
So, to all the devs out there prototyping their next punishment simulator: take a note from the crab. It’s okay to be a soulslike, but please, for the love of the sun, try to find your own shell.
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