Another Crab’s Treasure is in some ways the most grimdark Soulslike yet. It’s about a cute crab battling other crabs at the bottom of a colorful sea, sure, but the different shells and the weapons you and your enemies are wielding are made from trash dumping into that colorful sea by humans.
It’s still cute, though. There’s a reveal trailer below.
I went quickly from “Aw, that crab is using a plastic straw as a sword! How clever!” to “Oh. Yeah. Grim.”
As a hermit crab, you’re on a mission to buy back your repossessed shell, and it’s the combat along the way that causes its developers to compare it to a Soulslike. You’ll need to be carefully timing your blocks, rolling out of the way, and waiting for the right moment to stab your own piece of cutlery back in their fishy hides.
Being referred to as a Soulslike – or shellslike, anyway – doesn’t mean that Another Crab’s Treasure is difficult, however. Its Steam page says the game is “designed to be an approachable experience for newer soulslike players as well as provide a challenge for hardcore fans.” There are assist options to make the game easier or harder.
Appropriately-named developers Aggro Crab are no strangers to slightly grim settings for their colorful games, having previously made Going Under, a dungeon crawler about being an unpaid intern battling through failed tech startups.
Another Crab’s Treasure is aiming for release sometime in 2023.