Soulslike Game Where You Play as a Sword-Wielding Dog Goes Viral Because, Well, You're a Sword-Wielding Dog

‘Stray Dog: cipher cares’ is going viral, and it’s not hard to spot why: it’s an upcoming Souslike crippled wherever you play arsenic a stray canine connected a ngo to rescue its master.

If you similar Soulslike games, oregon truly enjoyed the portion of Twilight Princess wherever you play arsenic Wolf Link (or Okami, for that matter), this is the crippled for you. In Stray Dog: cipher cares (yes, that’s the title, and that’s however it’s capitalized), you instrumentality power of a enactment canine who was raised by a disgraced knight from birth.

As told by the game’s statement connected Steam, this knight erstwhile earned glory warring for an unnamed legion, but was aboriginal slandered and formed speech aft uncovering its “dark secrets.” Now an outcast, helium travels the kingdom with lone his hound by his side, teaching the carnal however to past the dangers they look connected the roadworthy together.

Finally, we decided to marque Stray Dog: cipher cares. https://t.co/PkJyPZz9zI Wishlist now! pic.twitter.com/CukYsRHmxL

The knight is abruptly and tragically captured, forcing his pup to brave the treacherous borderline fief Greythorn and the tyrannical legion that has invaded it successful bid to prevention him, utilizing lone its wits and the sword it wields successful its jaws.

The crippled promises a slew of the modular Soulslike mechanics we’ve go acquainted with implicit the past 2 decades, with our trusty doggo capable to parry, stealth kill, backstab, and present a fatal “death blow” to its opponents. Its Steam leafage touts aggregate combat arts, customized levels, "brutal brag fights," and exploration of the modular acheronian and gloomy medieval environments communal successful the genre.

Screenshots and gameplay footage from Stray Dog person dispersed crossed societal media, earning oodles of praise and countless comments promising to wishlist it erstwhile it yet releases astatine an as-yet unannounced date.

In fact, the crippled has gotten truthful overmuch attraction that its developer, Parry Frames Studio, published a connection connected Steam thanking fans for their involvement and providing an update arsenic to its existent progress.

“To our surprise, our crippled abruptly became fashionable connected X, and successful the past fewer days, galore enthusiastic players person flooded in. Firstly, let maine to explicit our gratitude to everyone for their attraction to us,” the connection reads.

"When we acceptable retired to make our ain game, we were conscionable a tiny radical passionate astir [Souls] games. We self-taught the Unreal Engine and past year, we were awarded a Megagrant by Epic Games arsenic encouragement, which helped america merchandise our archetypal game, Crimson Oath.

“...What I privation to explicit is that our squad presently gathers a radical of professionals, whose positions see conflict design, crippled programming, crippled art, arsenic good arsenic level plan and level art. We are a squad that has a passionateness for Soulslike games, truthful delight judge that we person capable method capabilities to marque this game.”

It’s presently chartless erstwhile Stray Dog: cipher cares volition launch, but it looks similar its rubric volition request a change, due to the fact that it seems a batch of radical do care, actually.

For much games wherever you play arsenic an animal, cheque retired our reappraisal of Stray, a puzzle-solving enactment platformer wherever you play arsenic a feline traversing a unsafe station apocalyptic world.

Virginia (she/her) is IGN’s News Editor. With 10 years of acquisition reporting connected games and entertainment, she’s got a storied inheritance successful the warring crippled community, influencer news, and viral online trends. Find her connected Twitter astatine @TheeMissGlaze.