Å kalle spill Soulslikes lar utviklere gjenskape Dark Souls

The way action RPGs are categorized continues to shape how they are made, and Aggro Crab creative director Caelan Pollock believes the Soulslike label has done more harm than good. He argues that the term has pushed developers into repeating Dark Souls rather than exploring new directions, even though that game already represents the genre at its strongest.

FromSoftware laid the foundation with Demon’s Souls in 2009, then cemented its influence with Dark Souls. That release became the reference point for an entire subgenre. Over time, Soulslike came to imply stamina-driven combat, deliberate movement, punishing enemies, corpse retrieval systems, and boss encounters built around repetition and pattern recognition. Pollock says those shared expectations have hardened into creative limits.

“I think calling games ‘Soulslikes’ has kept a lot of devs stuck in a loop of recreating Dark Souls. And in my opinion, the best Dark Souls game has been made already, and it’s called Dark Souls.”— Caelan Pollock

Pollock made the comments in an interview with Game Informer while discussing the long shadow Dark Souls continues to cast. He described the game as deeply flawed, but said those flaws are central to its legacy. Uneven balance, opaque systems, and frequent frustration created tension and discovery that resonated with players and developers alike. According to Pollock, that effect cannot be reproduced by copying surface-level mechanics.

“It’s a deeply imperfect game, and that’s why people like it and why it’s resonated so deeply with players and throughout the industry,” Pollock said. “I think when you try to mimic every aspect of that experience, you’re really not ending up with something worth paying attention to.”— Caelan Pollock

The absence of a strict definition has only widened the label’s reach. Some games adopt stamina management and enemy aggression. Others focus on checkpoint placement or boss design. As a result, titles with very different goals and tones are grouped together. Pollock’s criticism is aimed less at the mechanics themselves and more at how the Soulslike label frames development around imitation and comparison.

Aggro Crab’s Another Crab’s Treasure was designed in response to that mindset. The game casts players as a hermit crab navigating a polluted underwater kingdom, using discarded plastic as improvised shells. While the combat structure draws from familiar action RPG ideas, the tone, setting, and themes deliberately move away from grim fantasy. Environmental collapse and consumer waste are woven directly into the progression rather than serving as background detail.

Pollock said the studio took a risk by entering the space with a game that did not visually or tonally mirror Dark Souls. The team believed players were ready for a Souls-influenced game that treated the genre as flexible rather than fixed. That assumption ran against a market where genre labels often dictate expectations before release.

Industry trends reflect the concern Pollock raised. Many games marketed as Soulslikes frame themselves in direct relation to Dark Souls, promising greater difficulty or stricter adherence to its structure. That positioning often reduces them to comparisons instead of letting them stand on their own terms. Pollock suggested the label itself encourages this cycle by turning Dark Souls into a benchmark rather than a historical work.

Despite his criticism, Pollock did not dismiss FromSoftware’s impact. Dark Souls remains one of the most influential games of the last two decades. His argument focuses on how developers respond to that influence. Treating Dark Souls as a completed statement, rather than a blueprint, leaves room for experimentation that the Soulslike label often discourages.

Read also: Aggro Crab recently addressed expectations around its co-op climbing game Peak, stating that it was never meant to become a permanent live service. Developed with Landfall during a four-week game jam, Peak sold more than 10 million copies, but the studios have emphasized that its success does not change plans for a defined lifespan and a natural endpoint.