Given how often I mention it there's no hiding the fact that I am a gigantic fan of Dark Souls and the Souls series in general. The combination of brutal difficulty, immersive world-building, well balanced combat and plenty of ways to approach any single problem turned out to be exactly what I ever wanted from a game.

With Dark Souls 3 still a tiny spec on the horizon I'm constantly looking for similar games to sate my endless hunger for Souls-y gameplay. And much to my surprise, given that I do try to keep an eye out for upcoming indie games, I would've completely missed DarkMaus - a Dark Souls inspired ARPG starring a tiny badass mouse in armor - if not for PCgamer, so thanks for that one guys.

Here's the trailer and a short description of what DarkMaus is all about:

In short, DarkMaus is a challenging action RPG with methodical and skillful combat, good degree of weapon variety and a rather unique world to explore. To top it all off the entire game was made by a single guy!

Much like Dark Souls you can expect to die fairly often in DarkMaus as the enemies are clever, merciless and often positioned in sneaky ways that will easily punish players that try to rush through. But once you do manage to cleave your way through them and finally reach a shortcut that links back to an area you've already explored you'll get that sweet, sweet feeling of satisfaction not many games these days can provide.

The one really unique feature of DarkMaus (besides the main character being a mouse) is that if you die you will be respawned alongside a ghostly version of you which will then retrace your steps and hopefully help you out through a difficult section. Getting stuck for long is unlikely as you will eventually reach the point where you've amassed an entire ghostly horde ready to do battle for you but I still wouldn't recommend throwing yourself at enemy blades.

On the weapon front you have plenty of gear to chose from, everything ranging from halberds and broadswords to bows and magic. As is standard in the genre each one is completely viable and the choice depends entirely on your personal preference and gameplay style.

DarkMaus does have some shortcomings, most notably when it comes to the music and some bugs but overall it does seem like a really fun game. So if you're in to Souls-like experiences I'd suggest you at least give DarkMaus a look.