Honestly, I'm surprised nobody thought of this sooner. Via Kotaku, Stray Dog: Nobody Cares is a soulslike directly inspired by Dark Souls, which asks: "What if you played as Great Grey Wolf Sif?" It's an idea that seems painfully obvious in hindsight, and I can only credit developer Parry Frames Studio for doing the hard work of making it a reality.
Obviously, you don't actually play as Sif in Stray Dog: Nobody Cares. But Knight Artorius' lupine companion is clearly the archetype behind Parry Frames' four-legged protagonist. Even the backstory is similar, with you playing the faithful friend of a knight-errant in a dark fantasy kingdom. When its master is captured, the hound takes it upon itself to track him down and release him.
In its basic structure, Stray Dog appears to be a straightforward dark-fantasy soulslike—offering a world of crumbling ruins, undead enemies, bonfires and boss fights. Much like Sif, your hound fights with a sword in its mouth, and its acrobatic combat style strongly recalls Sif's own balletic sweeps and pirouettes.
Developer Parry Frames says there will be "multiple" combat styles that players can learn, and they'll be able to parry, backstab, and perform deathblows on enemies in the classic Dark Souls style. Stealth will play a role too, though Parry Frames doesn't provide much detail on this front.
Indeed, the announcement of Stray Dog appears to have caught Parry Frames off guard. In a Steam post, the developers explain that the game "suddenly became popular on X", after the studio posted some early test footage of the game to its account. Parry Frames released its debut game— the soulslike Crimson Oath—earlier this year, which it has been making over the course of eight years and was partly funded by an Epic Megagrant.
Crimson Oath has a 'very positive' rating on Steam, with some players praising how it harks back to FromSoft's earlier titles, while others compare it to Sekiro and even Piranha Bytes' Gothic. At the very least, it demonstrates that Parry Frames understand the fundamentals of the genre, which is a good foundation upon which to build something more distinct.
Given that it's only been four months since Crimson Oath released, it's unlikely that we'll see Stray Dog any time soon. But Parry Frames says it has "completed the development of the game's combat framework" and that element certainly looks robust in the available footage. In any case, it's a splendid premise to build a soulslike around, and let's hope Parry Frames can bring the concept home.
