If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to become the ultimate apex creature at the bottom of the food chain, Everything is Crab may have the answer. This upcoming animal evolution roguelite from indie developer Odd Dreams Digital and award-winning publisher Secret Mode is crawling its way onto PC via Steam in 2026 — but the free Steam Playtest is already underway, offering players an early taste of the chaos beneath the waves.
In Everything is Crab, you don’t start with pincers and a shell — you earn them. Beginning life as a shapeless blob, players must survive a brutal underwater world by evolving through a complex system of over 100 real-world-inspired mutations. Whether you’re absorbing DNA from predators or grazing peacefully on plant life, every run reshapes your creature into something new, weird, and potentially terrifying.
Embrace (or Escape) Carcinisation
At the core of Everything is Crab is a hilarious and surprisingly deep evolutionary journey. As you progress through procedurally generated biomes like icy tundras, arid deserts, and coral-choked seas, you’ll adapt your creature to survive environmental hazards, dodge massive boss predators, and, yes — avoid becoming yet another example of carcinisation (the evolutionary trend where animals tend to evolve into crab-like forms).
Your success (or failure) feeds into a system of genetic progression. Die? You’ll come back tougher — or stranger. With every attempt, your creature mutates and evolves in new directions, making no two runs the same. Want to be a herbivorous jelly blob with electric skin? Or a spiked scavenger with camouflage and a mean right claw? It’s up to you.
Features That Make You Crab-solutely Hooked
- 🌍 A living ecosystem with a dynamic day/night cycle
- 🦴 100+ real animal mutations to collect and combine
- 🦀 Branching evolution paths based on your playstyle
- 🧬 Progression system that rewards experimentation and survival
- 🧊 Challenge modes like surviving the Ice Age
- 🧠 Smart, responsive predators and massive boss fights
- 💀 Permanent death (but with evolution on your side)
Whether you’re fleeing predators, scavenging in the shadows, or going full carnivore and climbing the food chain, Everything is Crab encourages adaptation through trial and error — and a lot of shell-cracking action along the way.
Dive Into the Steam Playtest Today
While the full launch is set for 2026, PC players can dive into a free Steam Playtest right now and start shaping their own survival story. The test offers a sneak peek into the gameplay loop, mutations, and world-building that Odd Dreams Digital has cooked up — and early feedback will help fine-tune the game ahead of release.
Join the Playtest on Steam here.
About the Developers
Everything is Crab marks the first release from Odd Dreams Digital, a new indie studio with big evolutionary ideas (and definitely not a group of crabs stacked in a trench coat). Backing the launch is Secret Mode, an acclaimed indie publisher known for hits like Still Wakes the Deep, A Little to the Left, and Wobbledogs. Together, they aim to deliver a fresh, strange, and utterly crab-tivating roguelite in 2026.
